With a line-up almost too good to be true, Underwater New York presented a reading at Bryant Park's Word for Word series on June 30th, 2010.  

Readers included Jennifer Egan, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Ed Park, Deb Olin Unferth and Nelly Reifler. If that wasn't enough, Ben Greenman presented a letter-writing activity to the audience and Michael Hearst played some songs for underwater animals. Ed Park cracked a joke about Bryant Park being named after his grandfather and Michael's thermin drew curious stares from across the park. The event was absolutely amazing, and luckily  Stacey Szewczyk, a journalist and multimedia producer and the mind behind Hudson River Stories, an excellent blog “dedicated to the stories that flow from the Hudson River and the New Yorkers who draw sustenance and inspiration from it,” was there to film it. 

Underwater New York is brimming with proof that creativity can transform underwater trash to narrative treasure. So we were psyched when Significant Objects asked us to team up to convert once-underwater objects into actual cash to benefit  826 National, the non-profit that tutors kids in creative and expository writing. How cool is that? Chris Adrian, Deb Olin Unferth, Kathryn Davis, Robert Lopez and Tom McCarthy  invented significance for five objects found on our excursion to Dead Horse Bay last fall and then the objects and stories were put up for auction on eBay. 

Did anyone bid on them? DID THEY EVER!  

Our beloved Kangamouse, auctioned with Chris Adrian's story, made the third most money in Significant Objects' history: $162.50. Tom McCarthy and Deb Olin Unferth's story/object combinations were also among the top 25 bids ever. We were sad to see Kangamouse, Partial Mermaid and Pan Flute go, but thrilled to help out a great charity.  

And--the stories and objects live on. They're on our site, of course, as well as the Significant Objects site. What's more, they are part of the awesome Significant Objects anthology which published 100 of the project's finest stories--all five from our collaboration made the cut. You can buy it here!