On a sunny afternoon in June, in the gracious setting of Maclean House, Princeton Writes honored the contestants in its inaugural staff essay contest, which attracted submissions from across our campus. While four employees, Marianna Bogucki, Ruth McGuire, Jamie Saxon, and Dana Sheridan, received special recognition, program director John S. Weeren paid tribute to all who exercised their creativity, thanking them for embracing the “challenge that every word presents – to be as true as possible to what we see and hear and touch and taste and smell and feel; to capture, in this case, the character of our remarkable University.”

At a reception jointly hosted by Princeton Writes, the Office of Alumni Affairs, and the Council of the Humanities, Bogucki, McGuire, Saxon, and Sheridan were presented with certificates and autographed copies of On Writing Well by the late William Zinsser of the Class of 1944. The highlight of the gathering occurred when Bogucki, winner of the Princeton Writes Prize, read her essay, “November Light,” infusing New South, a building that few admire, with unexpected beauty.

Below are some mementos of this happy day, courtesy of local photographer David Kelly Crow.