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Stone Soup

100% written and illustrated by kids ages 8-13

The Stone Soup Team

Current

William Rubel, Executive Director.

William is founder of Stone Soup and the Children’s Art Foundation. In 1972, he gathered together a group of fellow students at the University of California Santa Cruz who shared his vision of creating a magazine written by and for children to highlight their creative talents and inspire them.

William is also an author specializing in traditional foodways, the history of bread, and Early Modern British kitchen gardens. His book on hearth cooking, The Magic of Fire (2002), was a World Gourmand Cookbook award winner and a James Beard nominee. His second book is Bread, a global history (2011). He is currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press.

William lives in Santa Cruz with his daughter, Stella, and their chickens, rabbits, and aviary birds. You can read more about his other interests at his personal website.

 

Emma Wood, Editor.

Originally from New York City, Emma holds a BA from Harvard in Russian History & Literature and an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she taught literature and poetry writing. Her poetry has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, in addition to appearing in a number of literary journals. She has worked previously as an editor for the online magazines The Morning News and The Rumpus.

Her first book, A Failed Performance: Collected Plays of Daniil Kharms, a collaborative translation with the poet C Dylan Bassett, was published in 2018.

She currently lives in the redwoods of Santa Cruz, CA, with her husband and their two dogs, Franny and Charlie, and is training for her third marathon. You can read more about her on her personal website.

 

Jane Levi, Operations Manager.

Jane brings to Stone Soup years of experience in infrastructure design and operations, as well as being a cultural historian who researches, writes and thinks about food and utopianism.
Jane recently co-founded Edible Utopia, an urban food-growing artist’s co-op at London’s Somerset House. Her co-authored book, Food, Politics & Society, was published by University of California Press in fall 2018. Currently a Visiting Research Fellow in history at King’s College London and recently also at Mount Vernon, VA, Jane is working with colleagues on the Georgian Papers at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.

Jane lives in London, but also spends time in Santa Cruz with Stone Soup colleagues. You can read more about her on her personal website.

 

Sarah Ainsworth, Special Projects and Customer Service.

Sarah joined the Stone Soup team after graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 2017, and is now attending graduate school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, studying to become an archivist. She was an avid reader of Stone Soup when she was young and submitted work, although–unlike her sister–she was never published! Amongst other responsibilities, Sarah works on production, and is editor of much of our online material, ensuring that the work of today’s Stone Soup bloggers and reviewers find its way out into the world.

 

 

Past

Gerry Mandel, Editor Emerita.

Gerry served as editor and co-director of Stone Soup for more than 44 years, from its inception in 1973 through the publication of the July/August 2017 issue. In addition to her editorial work, Gerry oversaw the design and production of each print issue of Stone Soup and managed the day-to-day operations of the business. She stepped down from these roles in 2017 and currently serves as Operations Manager for the Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony.