How would you react if your parents abandoned you and the only home you had ever known burned down? Or if your closest friend were being bullied at school—and you felt powerless to help? What would you do if your mom didn’t show up to pick you up after school, or if you found out […]
Letter From the Editor
Editor’s Note
We often think technology has made our lives better. We can easily heat up our leftovers in the microwave, dictate our papers and letters into our phones, take photos of anything we want, and FaceTime with family and friends who are far away. But instead of celebrating these conveniences, the stories and plays in this […]
Editor’s Note
Sometimes not a lot happens in the stories we publish. This is not the case in this issue! In these stories, a young boy, still reeling from his father’s death, fights to save the world; a journalist travels to a refugee camp in war-ridden Syria; a Parisian street orphan befriends an old woman who has […]
Editor’s Note
What is home to you? Is it a specific place—a whole country, state, or city? Is it a whole house or just a room? Is it being with certain family or friends? Or is it simply a feeling you get—of comfort and belonging—regardless of where you are? For me, home is not just one of […]
Editor’s Note
What unites these pieces of writing and art is their close, careful attention to the natural world: to migrating birds, to trees we see outside our window even if we live in a city, to the stark beauty of a desert sunset and the tragedy of changing weather patterns, to snowflakes and cut flowers, and […]
Editor’s Note
This is an issue that looks at relationships from many different angles. The poems and stories (and many of the images too) explore what it means to be a friend, a sibling, a child, and a student. You will notice many of these pieces are set at school. The start of school every fall can […]
The Value of Critical Reading
In addition to being Editor of Stone Soup, I am also a university instructor. When I teach creative writing, I like to tell my students that the most important part of the class is not writing but reading because reading will you teach you how to be a writer. As you sit there, eagerly turning […]
Editor’s Note
You’ll quickly notice this issue is more than a bit different than our other issues. There are no stories, artworks, or poems—only reviews! (I talk about the value of critical reading and reviewing in a longer note on page 4.) The other thing that makes this issue different is the way we put it together: […]
Editor’s Note
This is an issue about potential, possibility, and change. In Isabel Swain’s story “Innocent but Dire Words,” a young poet dreams of a better future for herself, while in Vandana Ravi’s short story, a girl dreams of simply another place. In Grace Jiang’s poems, nature comes to life again, after its seasonal death and hibernation, […]
Editor’s Note
It’s spring! The season of blooming flowers, blue skies, and baby birds cheeping in their nests. So, in this issue, in honor of spring, I wanted to celebrate the visual in all of its mediums. In addition to the romantic Parisian painting, with its dreamy golds, pinks, and blues, that graces our cover, this issue […]
