Challenge yourself to make a self-portrait every day this week, using a different medium each time (pencil, paint, pastel, ketchup…). Sometimes you might just do it in 5 minutes; other days, you will spend longer. The important thing is to do it every day!
Book-Writing Contest 2021
Get your book published by Stone Soup! Stone Soup is thrilled to announce that we are accepting submissions for our annual book contest. This year, we plan to accept two books for publication–one novel or short story collection and one book of poems. However, we do consider all submissions for potential publication. Contest Details Genre: Fiction (novel, novella, short story collection) or Poetry. Length: For fiction submissions, the minimum length is 20,000 words. For poetry submissions, the minimum length is 40 pages. There is no maximum word or page limit. Age Limit: For this contest, we will accept manuscripts written by those age 14 or under. Deadline: Monday August 16, 2021 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time). Entry fee: $15.00. Submissions of multiple manuscripts by the same author are accepted but you must submit each as an individual entry and pay the fee each time. Results and Prizes: We will select two winning manuscripts—one in fiction and one in poetry—to be published and distributed by Stone Soup in both print and ebook forms, available for sale on Amazon, in the Stone Soup store, via our distributors, and advertised along with the rest of our books to libraries and other vendors. We will also name a handful of finalists. Publication: We will consider all submitted work as part of the contest for potential publication in the magazine or as standalone volumes. Previous Submissions: If you submitted to last year’s contest, and have substantially revised your manuscript in the meantime, you are welcome to resubmit it this year. Submission Fee: The submission fee is important to us; it helps us defray the costs of the contest and of producing and publishing the two winning books. However, if the submission fee represents a financial hardship to your family, please write to editor@stonesoup.com. Submissions: All entries must be sent to us before the closing date via our Submittable portal, here. Questions? Please visit the Book Contest FAQ here. If you question isn’t answered there, you may post it to this page and we’ll get you an answer as soon as we can! We reserve the right to select no winners in a given year.
Writing Workshop #35: Emerging From
An update from our thirty-fifth Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop held on Saturday March 6, plus some of the output published below This week William talked about the different ways of looking at characters who are “emerging from” something. We considered the opening words of the King James Bible, and the possible narratives of emergence in Caspar David Friedrich’s mysterious painting The Wanderer, looking out from a mountaintop over a misty valley and peaks below. We considered the emergence of involuntary memory Marcel Proust’s famous madeleine moment, watched a clip from a movie version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and discussed the idea of characters emerging from a mental (rather than a physical) fog to come to a realization; any and every kind of emergence. And then, of course, we wrote! The Writing Challenge: Write a scene or story in which a character emerges from a fog or chaos of some sort. Remember, the writing should consist of two distinct parts—one of chaos, and one of clarity. The distinct parts can run together, like in Swanns way, or they can be separated like two mini chapters. The Participants: Madeline K, Peri, Leo, Kaidyn, Julia A, Reese, Lindsay, Helen, Ava, Lucy K, Pranjoli, Liam, Margaret, Lena, Samantha, Eve, Lina, Sierra, Syra, Nami, Simran, Rachael, Madeline N, Maggie, Sophie, Anya, Madeline S, Tegan, Noa, Elbert, Alice, Ruhi, Olivia Z, Charlotte K, Sage, Anna, Angela, Tilly, Yasmine, Lucy R, Grace, Emma B, Enni, Olivia S, Charlotte, Jonathan L., Nova Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Creativity Peri Gordon, 11 Part I I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. I haven’t smiled. I haven’t laughed. I haven’t spoken. I haven’t understood. I haven’t truly loved, and I haven’t truly lived, for days. I am too tired. I would be too tired to care, too, but number six—not understanding—is bothering me. I have to understand, and I don’t. One day I was part of a community. The next, the police were in front of me, their indestructible armor gleaming in the light of dawn, and were shoving me out of my life. And this isn’t a new life, because wandering aimlessly in the scorching heat and the freezing cold and the dry, humid, or wet pit of being completely lost isn’t living. I have lived in the city all my life. All my life—my life of actually living. All the time of my not lonely, not frightening, not starved existence. Now my life is over. I am lost, and no one, not even myself, can find me. I was born in the city. But was I? I can’t remember—but that’s normal. Completely ordinary. Like I used to be. Except I was never ordinary. I was different, but in subtle ways, my favorite color and food and style of clothing being unique. Does that mean I should be forced out? Part II Except I do have memories of birth, too early to be defined in my mind, but memories of a better world. Golden wings on silver elephants, delicate blue roses on diamond crowns. My earliest memory is of an atmosphere of swirling, shimmering color. People coming up with ideas and working together to bring them to life. Is all that from a children’s book? No. I would never have given it away. Suddenly I remember more. Instead of learning to add fractions, I learned about creativity and ingenuity. Creativity—that was the name of the place. What place? My birthplace. Why did I leave? Oh, I remember. I got lost. Yes, yes, oh yes, then, like now, I thought my life might as well be over. But the city found me. And now, thirty years afterward, they found out about me. Remembered how strange my arrival was. I have found out about myself, too. I am Creative—yes, that’s the adjective. I can go back to Creativity. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Dagger of Ash Lina Kim, 11 Gabriella stood at the edge of the clouded forest in anticipation. Her cousin, Finn, was going to visit. Every month, it was like this. The fog allowed a rift in the space-time continuum, and allowed him to come from the other universe. He wasn’t, of course, actually related by blood to Gabriella, but they were so close that it seemed they were cousins. Normally, the fog wasn’t this bad. It was just a light mist in the forest, dew on the grass and flowers. To Gabriella, weather and fog conditions didn’t matter. Just the same, every month, she would stand in front of the forest in sunshine, rain, storm, whichever. She was clutching a book to her chest. It was a journal. Whenever Finn would come, they would flip through the journal and add notes to it, about plants and animals and everything from Finn’s universe. Finn carried a similar notebook, except it wasn’t a notebook at all. It was a strange little rectangle, only the edges weren’t sharp, they were curved. If he tapped a white space in it, it would pull up a “keyboard”, in Finn’s words. He would simply press a letter on the keyboard and it would pop up in the space. Finn called it an eye-pad, which is ridiculous, since it is not a pad that you would put on your eye. Gabriella recalled the first time Finn had visited. He had been shocked. Yellow trees?? he had yelped. It was true. The trunks were yellow, and the leaves were blue. The fruits tended to be black and gray and crinkled at best, but sometimes, after a while, they would turn strange colors and nobody would eat them. For example, oranges were slightly round, black and wrinkled, but they would turn orange and an orange coating would surround the fruit. Finally, Gabriella heard a bush moving. She turned towards it and out came Finn. She grinned, then her face fell. He was all scratched up. There was a long scar across his cheek, stretching from under his eye to his chin. He didn’t meet her eyes.
