Princeton-Bound RBR Student Makes Short List for Writing Award

Emily Reardon, who graduated from last month and is headed to Princeton to study creative writing in the fall, says it was a story her mom told her about her days working as a nurse in a hospital's pediatric oncology ward that inspired a piece she wrote called "The Boy in the Blue Sweater."

Reardon, 18, submitted the one-page piece to a writing competition in the fall and found out last week that it is one of five to have been selected for the award's short list.

"Our writing teacher would post submission deadlines on the board, and this was one of them," said Reardon, a Little Silver resident.

The Eric Hoffer Award for short prose and books is awarded annually, and its mission is to "honor freethinking writers and independent books of exceptional merit," according to its website. Prizes include a $250 award for short prose and a $2,000 award for best independent book.

Regardless of whether she wins, Reardon's story will be included in the annual Best New Writing anthology.

Reardon said that her story was loosely based on her mother's recollections of carrying a pediatric patient down the long hall of the hospital to the morgue. The story begins, "This is what my mother told me."

"I just wrote it and didn't expect much," Reardon said of learning that her submission had been selected as a finalist for the award.

She said she'd like to complete a novel by the end of her four years at Princeton as part of her senior thesis and hopes to work in publishing one day.