Student Writing Contest
“Telling Our Tales”
Student Writing Competition 2023
It is a primary goal for us here at the Memorial to keep Thomas Wolfe’s writings alive. We pride ourselves on a longstanding history of working with local schools to engage students and help fulfill this goal. Our annual Student Writing Competition is one of our most exciting ways to achieve this. Every year we work to introduce students to Wolfe through his short stories, and we mine through them to ensure quality and appropriateness of content/context. While we often feel it is at the discretion of the teachers and instructors as to whether a larger discussion is warranted on the use of certain language and styles, we never want to offend anyone or imply we uphold and encourage the use of strong language. For this reason, our short story this year, “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn,” has been minorly edited to take out three instances of strong language. It will show in the context of the story as ‘[redacted]’. We appreciate all our local school communities and the many teachers, students, and parents who support us and participate regularly in our writing competition. We will always work with you, in the best and most efficient ways possible, to help bridge the gap between Wolfe and modern audiences.