From left to right: Princeton Writes Director John Wereen, Carla Zimowsk, Dana Sheridan, Dianne Spatafore, and Melissa Moss
Every year, for the past three years, Princeton University’s Princeton Writes program has sponsored a staff writing contest. Well, folks, uh…this year I won the contest! So please forgive a bit of horn tooting. I put blood, sweat, and more then a few tears into my entry, and I’m a proud essay mom.
The Princeton Writes program focuses on non-academic writing and clearness of communication. They offer classes, tutorials, writing retreats, and an annual essay contest in collaboration with the Office of Alumni Affairs and the Humanities Council. This year’s contest topic was to “describe an encounter or relationship that has given you a new perspective.” The results were truly moving.
All of us gathered at a reception earlier this month, and I was invited to read my essay out loud. Which was terrifying.
But the whole gang showed up to get me through. Full disclosure: they served wine and mini cannoli at the reception.
The links to the essays are below. We also recorded us reading them in a studio (very cool!). So if you scroll to the bottom of each page, you’ll find a sound file as well. If you’d like to read more about the authors, please see this article by Adrianne Daponte.
Princeton Writes Prize:
Dana Sheridan – She Still Hasn’t Told Me Her Name
Honorable Mentions:
Melissa B. Moss – Two Autumns
Dianne D. Spatafore – Untitled
Carla M. Zimowsk – Arkadas
I often feel like I’m writing in a void. Therefore, it’s incredibly encouraging and validating when someone likes and honors your work. I’d like to sincerely thank – from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my typing fingers – the Princeton Writes program for allowing writers a chance to channel and share their thoughts. Thank you so much.
Photos by David Kelly Crow
Tired and ready to jump into bed? You might have some competition. Can you toss the bear, chipmunk, groundhog, raccoon, porcupine, AND yourself safely into the bed?
The bed’s occupants are toilet paper tubes (the chipmunk is a 2″ snippet of tube). The bear, however, is a packing tape core. We used construction paper and markers to decorate them, as well as 
To play the game, simply set the bed up, move back a few paces, and let the tubes fly! The big bear is especially fun to toss, as he/she is prone to sending the other tubes bouncing out of the bed and into the air!
Next, crumble up a swath of brown packing paper (ours was 25″ x 36″). The more wrinkly it is, the more it will look like bark! Wrap the paper around the sides of the box, anchoring it tape or hot glue. Hot glue the paper to the base as well. One thing to note – you want the brown paper to extend about 14″ – 16″ above the top of the box. This will give you nice, fat branches on your tree.
Cut sections into the paper, then twist the sections tightly to create branches. Notice in the photo below that the branch sections end 4-5″ above the top of the box. If you cut them too close to the top of the box, your branches will droop.
Add some green construction paper leaves, and your tree is done! We used the box lid to create shelves for the library, tucked a couple felt blankets in place, added a patterned paper rug, and made a library sign. Here’s a shot of our library’s interior.
We wanted the library books to sit solidly on the shelves, so we hot glued mini craft stick spines to 2.75″ x 4″ pieces of poster board, then hot glued a couple 2.25″ x 3.25″ pages on top. It worked great!
It takes a little time to make the books, and we really wanted to fill the shelves, so we prepped 6 books per kid in advance (132 books total!). Behold the fruits of our labors…
Finally, your library readers! We fashioned ours after the characters in the book, using 2 toilet paper tubes and construction paper. We couldn’t help making a red knit felt cap for the girl, too.
Our library tree has red lanterns so those were the final touch to our project. We recycled them from this