Live Deliberately Essay Contest

The Walden Woods Project

Each year, the Live Deliberately Essay Contest invites youth around the world, ages 14-18*, to consider a selected Henry David Thoreau quotation and accompanying prompt. Contestants are asked to write a thoughtful essay that uses personal experience and observation to demonstrate how that year’s quotation and prompt relate to their own lives and to the world around them. Like Thoreau, these young people use the power of their words to convey vivid stories, personal conviction and human compassion.