If you could write a letter to any author, living or dead, who would you choose: Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, Armistead Maupin, Toni Morrison?
Each year, the California State Library and the California Center for the Book sponsor a writing challenge, Writer to Writer, and pose this very question to adult learners enrolled in library literacy programs throughout California. The adult learners who take part may be writing about the very first book they have ever read cover to cover, or perhaps they are writing to authors whose books have touched them deeply.
Contest winners are selected by a panel of Adult Learners on Staff from California Library Literacy Service programs. One overall winner is selected in each of three categories—beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Each year, the selected winning letters are published on the California Center for the Book website (www.calbook.org) and the winners, along with their tutors, are invited to Sacramento to receive their awards.
Last year, an adult learner from Project Read was selected as one of 13 finalists in the statewide Writer to Writer Challenge. He wrote his letter to Loraine Hansberry, author of the play A Raisin in the Sun.
The State Library provides a very helpful, step by step, instructional guide for use by tutor/learner teams who are working on letters for the Writer to Writer Challenge. You can pick up the instructional guide and official entry forms at the Project Read office, or call the office and we will be happy to mail you the materials. The deadline for this year’s entries is March 17, 2006.
So this year let’s make sure at least one of those three Writer to Writer winners is from Project Read. We strongly encourage you to participate in this fun and rewarding challenge for adult learners.
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