Cheers for Maggie Tighe! The 11th-grader at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick was named this week as one of six national winners in the Letters About Literature contest. She directed a $10,000 grant from co-sponsor Target to the Monocacy Middle School Library. (She also pocketed a $500 Target giftcard.)

The contest asks students to write a letter to an author who has inspired them. Maggie wrote to Aldous Huxley, saying her friends had been spoiled by a Wikipedia-fueled intellectual laziness. An excerpt: "My generation is learning to take the easy way out. To me, it feels as if it is only a matter of time until society disintegrates into what your novel, Brave New World, presented — a mass of soulless bodies that have become lethargic and who are disinterested in individuality, spirituality, or progress." Here's the entire letter, (click on the Level III winner). 

Her letter was one of nearly 60,000 in the annual contest, co-sponsored by the Maryland Center for the Book at the Maryland Humanities Council, the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, and Target Stores.