Jane Levi

“Letting out a sigh of relief he began to fill his basket” Anna Welch, 13 Published In Stone Soup March/April 2008. A note from William Rubel My daughter starts middle school next week. I am sure that parents and grandparents reading this newsletter can relate to my, Wow! When my daughter was very young I recall being told all the time, “It goes quickly.” And so, indeed, it does. Of course, she is excited about starting middle school. And I know that this Newsletter’s school-age readers are excited about starting a new school year, as well. Deadlines approaching! I can’t say it too often. Stone Soup is now monthly! The September Poetry Issue is in production. The October issue deadline is already approaching. You have one week left to send in stories, poems and artworks that will be considered for October (which means 5 weeks for November’s deadline, and so on). Remember, we are expanding out from art that illustrates stories, and we are increasingly receiving great photography as well as standalone drawings and paintings. Bringing fairies (and other stories) to life Anna Welch–who made the remarkable illustration heading this week’s Newsletter–illustrated several stories for Stone Soup. Her work has enriched the magazine. Look at this drawing of a fairy. The feather and the ear, the folds in the shirt, the white contrasted with the darker forest are really incredible. Technically, this is an extraordinary work. It is obviously not Anna’s first drawing! But what I’d like you to focus on is the strength of her imaginative vision. The fairy has presence within an environment that also itself has presence. The drawing seems real. It has what we call a “sense of place.” When you are working on art or stories for Stone Soup or for school–or just for yourself–and whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, the goal is always to fully imagine the world you are writing about so you can make it come alive in your creative work. I know a woman who writes picture books; books for very young children. Before she writes her books she writes a 30,000- to 50,000-word story about her characters! In this way, she developes a rich world in her mind so that when she finally sits down to write the incredibly short book that is a picture book, her story and characters truly come alive. Of course, this takes a great deal of discipline. And I am not saying I have it myself!  But, I am mentioning this idea in case one of you can use it. Novels Six Newsletter readers wrote to me last week to say that they have completed or are working on a novel–thank you to them! As I know that each of you may not read this Newsletter every week I will repeat my call for Stone Soup authors, illustrators, honor roll recipients, and, in fact, anyone reading the newsletter not yet in college who has written or is writing a novel to please get in touch with me by replying to this Newsletter. For writers under the age of 14, we are looking for longer works we can potentially serialize in Stone Soup. No promises yet, but we are looking to expand our publishing program! Until next week, William News for Adult Newsletter Readers I think I will start separating out what I want to say to Newsletter readers who are still students, and the many adults who also read the newsletter. We sent out letters to all of you whose print subscriptions needed renewing and converting to digital, but many did not open the letter, or haven’t responded yet. We haven’t repeated that letter because (as some of you know from experience) the subscription system we are currently using has been creaking a little bit under the strain. To get back to a smoother process, we have happily just re-hired the company that used to manage our Stone Soupprint subscriptions, and they will be handling our online sales. It will take about three weeks from now to be set up with them. Once we are, we will get back to the conversion process and proper levels of efficiency! They have a “pick and pack’ business. That means that we will also be able to sell digital subscriptions that include our new, print edition Stone Soup Annual (as well as standalone copies of that book). It also means that we will be able to get our store–with our various anthologies, blank books, and sketch books–operating again. As you’ve heard me say before, we were forced to stop printing throughout the year because we had effectively become bankrupt, and we wanted to keep this important project alive through the digital options and the Annual. We are going to be asking you to subscribe or re-subscribe for the kids in your life, subscribe for schools, buy our publications, and make donations. But! Not until we have our back-end processing in better order. All my best, William  Sign up to our mailing list to receive the Saturday Newsletter straight to your mailbox!   From Stone Soup July/August 2008 The New Soccer Season By Andrew Lee, 13 Illustrated by Dennis Guo, 12 Noel seemed to hang in the air for a second before crashing into the ground. The grass rushed up to meet him as his lungs were crushed by the impact. Dazed, Noel looked around. The soccer ball was snatched away quickly as the opposition took control. The stifled laughs that followed made Noel wish he were dead. Slowly, like so many times before, he stood and walked away No one intervened. History seems to like repeating itself, thought Noel bitterly. The same thing had happened yesterday And the day before that. Just as Noel was finding his stride in the soccer game, one of the kids would do something to humiliate him. Noel never said a word. He just picked himself up and walked away. They aren’t mean, thought Noel dejectedly I’m just not one of them. But

“It cocked its head expectantly. Did it want me to follow it?” Illustration by Joan He, 13 for “Owl Eyes” by Noa Wang, 11 September/October 2010  A note from William Rubel I love the colors in this drawing. Joan shifts the evening world towards blue. The lighting is spectacular. Notice the moonlight reflected on the hills, in the trees, and on the ground. A full moon is like a second sun. The forest scene is well imagined to include tree branches on the ground, and brush. But the real power in the scene is the stare between the girl and the owl. This picture certainly draws us in. The most well known example of an artist who sometimes used a palate shifted towards blue is that of the Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso. For a few years at the beginning of the 20th century he painted a series of pictures that were largely in shades of blue. This came to be known as his “blue period.” As I have mentioned before, we are shifting in Stone Soup towards publishing more free-standing art–art that doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to a story. If Joan’s and Picasso’s blue shifted artworks inspire you, then please send us what you create. You don’t need to use a blue dominated palette. Follow your imagination to match a compressed choice of colors to what you are depicting. Writing a novel? If you are a young writer reading this today, or a former Stone Soup author or Honor Roll recipient, I’d like to know whether you are in the midst or writing a novel or longer form piece of prose, or have already finished one. You can reach me by replying to this Newsletter. Coming soon – the September Poetry Issue I had the pleasure today to read the upcoming poetry issue. I was so impressed. I have read a lot of poetry by young writers in the last 45 years. This collection that Emma Wood has selected for the September issue is the strongest body of children’s poetry I can remember reading. I think you will find, as I did today, that the poems have fluency, complexity, beauty, and emotional power. You will be able to read the new issue online on September 1st. If you need help getting into your digital account, then get in touch with us at subscriptions@stonesoup.com, and we’ll make sure you are up and running in time for the new issue! Until next week, William Subscribe to Stone Soup A Stone Soup digital subscription costs $24.99 for a year. For that you get 11 issues published monthly with a combined Summer issue, access to the Stone Soup Archive going back a little over twenty years, writing projects, author interviews, and more. Starting in 2017 we are publishing a print Annual which, this year, we are offering as a separate purchase. More details on that will appear on our website soon. Once we have upgraded our subscription system, we will be able to offer the print Annual along with the digital subscription either separately or as a bundle for subscriptions in 2018. Meanwhile, remember that every issue that is online is also available as a downloadable PDF. Just go to the Archive page to select the PDFs you want. You can either print them at home or school, or read the issues on your tablet or other device. Remember, you need to be a subscriber to get access to the full range of material. Thank you for your support.   Sign up to our mailing list  to receive the Saturday Newsletter straight to your mailbox!   From Stone Soup September/October 2002 Cry of the Wild Heart By Mary Woods, 12 Illustrated by Dominic Nedzelskyi, 11 The small, ragged fox trotted along in the dry brush  near the train track, head low and ears flattened. His scruffy, dirty, brown coat ruffled slightly in the cold mid-October wind. His alert, dark eyes were half-closed, giving the fox a sharp, hooded gaze. Though barely a foot-and-a-half high, everything about him was tough and quick. He was hungry. The fox lifted his slim muzzle to the wind and sniffed deeply, hoping to catch the whiff of a mouse or a fat starling waddling along the tracks. No other animal was nearby, but there was something tantalizing in the air… He leaped out of the dry bracken and onto the great ridge of white gravel, upon which the railroad tracks lay. Here the fox could have a better view of his surroundings and could better smell more distant odors. Again he snuffed the breeze, short, stiff whiskers trembling. Yes, he could smell it, quite clearly now. It was coming from a small grocery store, from its open garbage cans. . . . more

“Whenever Bryan was batting, he always had a feeling of excitement burst right through him” Illustrator Alicia Betancourt, 13, for The Montana Summer by Andrew Lorraine, 11. Published July/August 2002. A note from William Rubel I’m back from my California Sierra camping trip with my daughter, Stella. We were camping by a lake at 10,000 feet with surrounding peaks that are over 13,000. There was an unusual amount of snow this year so it was a very different landscape than we were familiar with from previous trips. Besides the huge patches of snow, the lakes were over-full. The lake we camp by has picnic tables by the shore. They were all in the lake. People sat on them to fish! There were large waterfalls flowing into the lake where usually there is no water at all, and the streams coming into the lake and flowing out of it were white with cold rushing water. Wildflowers were plentiful, but except for mosquitos, insects were not. Very few butterflies, bee flies, hover flies, wasps and the many other insects that are usually in so much evidence. Did my daughter and I sit down and write about nature as I had suggested you do? The answer is, no. We had set aside the last days for nature writing and drawing but then Stella came down with strep throat forcing us to cut our camping trip a little short.  Before Stella got sick we were both writing, just not about nature. Stella was working on a novel inspired by Rick Riordan’s Olympian series, and I was working on my bread history. I found sitting in the campsite by a rushing stream both relaxing and stimulating. Ideas flowed and I got a lot of writing done. Sometimes, changing where you are writing can be a big help. There are still a couple of weeks of vacation left. Don’t do like my daughter and I did! Don’t procrastinate! If you go to a beautiful place, don’t wait to the last days to begin writing. And if you have already been to a beautiful place, it isn’t too late to write something and send it to us. As I had suggested before, grownups and kids writing together can send in their work jointly and we will consider the joint submissions for the website. Sport and Art I’d like to say something about this extraordinary artwork of a baseball game. The city skyline, created with simple shapes lacking in detail emphasizes the power and scale of the surroundings. Remarkably, each of the baseball players is depicted in a classic baseball pose — the pitcher winding up to throw the ball, the batsman standing with one leg forward, waiting for the ball, and the players in the field, ready, alert for the action to begin. The players’ body language says it all: the ball is abut to fly. How soon will we hear the crack of ball against the bat? Summer Camp The camp story that is included in this week’s newsletter brings back memories. I went both to a camp I loved, and one I hated. The one I hated had bullying. I wasn’t bullied myself, but a friend of mine, who, like Jake’s brother was a little different to other children, was. I remember how horrible it made me feel to see him hurt by mean children. I vividly remember telling my parents about what happened when I got home. If some of you have a camp story inside you — and particularly if you have gone to a camp this summer — get those ideas onto paper and send them to Emma. Until next week, William Business news We are mostly working this month on making improvements behind the scenes. We are looking into a more robust subscription system, beginning to work with the web developers on redesigning the web site, working with the book designer on the Stone Soup Annual, and re-editing the interviews with Stone Soup authors. I think it will take a month or two before the fruits of this month’s work becomes visible. The September Poetry issue, the first issue edited by Emma Wood,  is now moving into the production phase. If you have poems that you didn’t quite manage to send in earlier in the summer, send them to us now. There is poetry in every issue. We have been told of a couple of other Stone Soup contributors who are now published writers, and heard from others who were illustrators and gone on to a career in art or design. We are getting in touch with them. If you know of anyone who was published in Stone Soup or on the Honor Roll who is now an adult writer or artist, do let us know. We’d love to hear from them.   Sign up to our mailing list to receive the Saturday Newsletter straight to your mailbox! From Stone Soup November/December 2012 Camp Conflict By David Agosto-Ginsburg, 11 Illustrated by Madeleine Gates, 13 My name is Jake. I have brown hair and green eyes, and I’m eleven years old, but most importantly, I’ve always wanted to go to summer camp. Every year I beg my parents to let me go, but they always insist that it’s too expensive. It was the end of the year and I was about to confront my parents about summer camp, when they walked into my room with huge smiles glued to their faces. “This year we’re sending you and your brother off to summer camp!” my mom exclaimed. “Hoora…” I started. “Wait, did you say me and my brother?” I inquired. I looked over at my brother, Chris. He had pale skin, sad brown eyes, and was nine years old. He had given up on the puzzle he was doing because he wasn’t able to assemble the pieces in neat rows. We both looked at my dad anxiously. “Yes, his therapist said it could help him deal with his autism,” my dad replied. Around other people my brother does all kinds of weird things. Going to the same summer camp as him would be a