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Letters About Literature Awards to be presented at Annual Meeting of RI Center for the Book at Providence Public Library
2009 Recipients are from East Greenwich, East Providence, Hope, Newport, North Kingstown, Providence and Pawtucket Padma Venkatraman, Rhode Island Author, to Speak

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Center for the Book will be held Tuesday, June 2 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at the William Hall Library, 1825 Broad Street, Cranston. The event, open to the public, will feature the award ceremony for the State’s Winners and Honorable Mentions of the 2009 Letters About Literature contest. Padma Venkatraman, Rhode Island award-winning author, will address the young contest winners as the keynote. Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts, a long-time library supporter and patron at William Hall Library will present the awards.

The three State Winners of the 2009 Letters About Literature competition will be sharing their award-winning letters during the meeting. Jazz Sussman Moss, of East Greenwich has taken top honors for Level 1 (grades 4 – 6) in this year’s writing contest. Reilly Hayes of Hope and Rebecca Burgess of Providence are the top honorees for Levels 2 (grades 7 & 8) and Level 3 (grades 9 – 12).

Honorable Mention awards will be given to Grace and Andrew Miner of East Greenwich, Samantha Amore of North Kingstown, Danielle Trombley of Newport, Carolyn Haddad of East Providence, Pedro Maldonado of Pawtucket and Colin-James McConnell Whitney of Providence.

Read the winning letters and many of the 100 semifinalist letters.

Approximately 55,000 young readers across the country participated in this year’s Letters About Literature competition, a reading and writing promotion program for students in grades 4 – 12. It is coordinated by the Library of Congress Center for the Book, sponsored by Target and locally promoted by the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. The students are asked to write a letter to their favorite author, describing how that author’s work somehow changed their view of the world or of themselves. Young readers can select authors from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic.

Focusing on reader response and reflective writing, the contest has three competition levels and names one state winner and Honorable Mentions at each level.

Padma Venkatraman is the author of Climbing the Stairs, a novel set in India in the 1940’s. The novel is the story of a young girl’s struggle for personal freedom, played out against the backdrop of World War II and the nonviolent Indian independence movement led by Gandhi. Ms. Venkatraman currently lives in Rhode Island and has worked as the Director of Graduate Diversity Affairs at the University of Rhode Island as well as Adjunct Faculty at the Graduate School of Oceanography. Her second novel, Island’s End, is soon to be published.

The public is invited to attend this free event. For more information about Padma Venkatraman, visit the author’s web site at http://www.cliofindia.com/padma.