Jane Levi

I am often asked, are there Stone Soup authors who have gone on to be published writers? The answer is, yes. We always like to hear who they are, and now that we have this weekly newsletter, we have an easy means of passing on the news to you.We just heard from the parents of Stone Soup author Allison Trowbridge (1988), with a copy of Allison’s first published book, Twenty Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning. It is a work of non-fiction written as a series of letters. The work is very personal and is appropriate for its intended reader — young women who are just embarking on their post-school adult life. One thing we look for here at Stone Soup is writing from the heart, and this is certainly a work that speaks from Allison’s deepest feelings. She chose a letter format. She created a fictional reader to whom she addresses her letters. This is an original structure for a book of advice about life. It is a good idea! Congratulations Allison on your first book!As a writer myself, I can say that while I don’t write books that are explicitly in the form of letters, I do think of my books and articles as letters. I always have a clear idea who I am writing for, and as I write I imagine myself talking to that reader. My first book, The Magic of Fire, a book about cooking on a fireplace, actually literally started as a letter. I spent a month sitting in a Paris café working about four hours per day writing a letter (a long letter) to my friends Ga Lombard and Judith Milton. They had shared many, many meals at my house that were cooked on the fire and wanted to know how to do it themselves.  I never did send that letter as it took some years to finish it, and by that time it had grown to some three hundred pages. Whatever you write, it will be stronger if you at least imagine that you are writing to someone. I think this is true whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. As you write a story for Stone Soup, think about someone actually reading it. Writing for Stone Soup is different from writing in school. Your teacher commands you to write and you don’t have a choice. Even when you don’t feel like it, in school you have to write that story and turn it in. Writing for Stone Soup is a choice. I hope that whenever you choose to write for us that you do so because you have something to say that you want others to read. Allison’s parents sent us her book along with a letter in which they talk about how important it was to Allison to be published in Stone Soup. They wrote, “Allison’s experience of being selected for Stone Soup Magazine was such a huge encouragement to her that she still talks about it today.” That is almost thirty years later! It  actually easy to get your work published in Stone Soup. If writing is your passion, and you have something to say that you think Stone Soup readers will want to hear — a story that will take them deep into your imaginary world — then please do send us your work. Parents, grandparents, and friends of Stone Soup who are also reading this newsletter: you can try to encourage the young people in your life to write by giving them a journal for the summer. Of course, if you live with a young person, then there is nothing like modeling behavior. In other words, sit down together so you are both writing — by hand or on a computer. The art. The amazing drawing in this newsletter is by a fourteen-year old Egyptian boy, Moustafa Mouhamud Hussein, and it was drawn in 1977. I’ll write more about it in another newsletter. For today, I just want you to start thinking about the drawing you might make of a complicated space with lots of people, like a ball game. Notice the different colors between the many people watching the parade. Until next week, William Survey Results from Last Week: I am very pleased that 78% of the respondents to last week’s survey on reviews in Stone Soup are Stone Soup readers age 14 and under. The results are very useful. Thank you! The results: You are interested in book reviews (every respondent!), then music, followed by art and movies. What you were super not interested in are reviews of video games and apps. I don’t know whether this is because your parents were looking over your shoulder (or you really aren’t interested in reading reviews of video games – given how many video games my daughter plays I had thought that video game reviews would be a good idea, but maybe there’s less to say about them and its more fun just to play!) Apps were also not of much interest. As you all know, we have been publishing book reviews for decades. But what your enthusiasm for book reviews suggests is that it would be a good idea for us to have a full blown book review section on our web site. We’ll see what we can do. Many of you suggested titles of works you’d like Stone Soup to review. We will do further work on the survey results this week and hopefully next week we’ll be able to begin posting works we’d like to see reviewed — and clarify what kinds of reviews we are looking for. Thanks to all of you who helped us out with your opinions. From the Stone Soup issue: May/June 2010 Wave Song Written by Anna J. Mickle, 12 Illustrated by Ida Otisse McMillan-Zapf, 12 A vast land Small enough to comfort me Not an ocean, too big Not a pond, too small A meadow of green A field of waves So loud, so soft So big, so small

Illustration by Max Strebel, 12, published in Stone Soup 2002. A Note from William Rubel Thanks to those of you who took our survey last week on themed issues. Here are some preliminary results: 60% of the respondents were age 14 or under. This is great! Thank you, Stone Soup readers! The adult respondents were divided between parents (20%), grandparents (10%), and other adult friends of Stone Soup (10%), a great balance. 80% of you like the idea of themed issues, with the understanding that we don’t overdo it. So, we are thinking that we might have three or four themed issues out of eleven issues in a year. What about the topics? Well, Nature is the favorite theme suggested, and Sports is the theme that was disliked the most. Given the relatively small numbers of responses it is probably safe to say that Food, including recipes, Family, Photography, Comics/Animation, Poetry, and Science Fiction are all quite well liked. However, in the comments section many more fantastic ideas were put forward, so we are thinking of sending out another set of questions on themes in a week or two, building on this first one. To the adults who wrote more extensive comments, thank you. New survey on reviews! As you all know, Stone Soup has in the past only reviewed books. Our new editor, Emma Wood, would like to expand the range of what we review beyond that, and we’d like to know what kind of reviews you would like to read in Stone Soup. Do you think we should review movies, TV shows, video games, or something else? Tell us your opinion in this new survey, and also tell us the titles of any books, movies, games or TV shows you might like to see reviewed (or review yourself). Emma will publish lists of titles we’d like to have reviewed based on your suggestions, so please let us know what you think! Please Take the Stone Soup Reviews Survey. Thank You! Simplified submit form: As my daughter is reminding me constantly, school is nearly out. Please look through your stories, poems, and artwork and select the best from the year to send to us. Our editor, Emma Wood, has simplified the submission form so it’s never been easier to send us your work! In my other life, as some of you know, I am a writer. Right now, I mostly write about bread. On Sunday, I am going to Charlotte, North Carolina. I am giving a talk about the history of bread at a conference. I need to finish my talk – so, this being Saturday morning, I’d better get back to it! Until next week, William From the Stone Soup issue: November/December 2000 Memories of Sunset Lake Written by Mandana Nakhai, 11 Illustrated by Zoe Paschkis, 12 It was getting dark. Zoe lay on the hammock on the front porch eating an ice-cream sundae. She looked out at the golden lake thoughtfully. The porch door slammed. Zoe scooted over for her twin brother, Hunter.“Thinkin’?” Zoe nodded. She slurped a chocolate drip off the side of the tall glass. Hunter carefully watched Zoe’s gaze drop toward the other white-picket-fence houses ringing the lake. “I just can’t believe the summer’s over.” Hunter got up and dangled his feet over the porch, brushing some blond hair out of his intense green eyes. “Well, we can come back next summer. We have to go back to school, you know.” Zoe nodded, wishing that the summer would never end. Cool air blew the trees as the twins walked down to the dock. “I just wish we could have done something interesting. All we did is sit around on the dock the whole time.” Read more

This painting by a Jordanian child shows her mother standing in a room with a bowl on her head. In many cultures people walk carrying loads balanced on the top of their heads, which we find exotic. I have traveled to many places where the only people with backpacks, and the only people in torn jeans, are the tourists. Our costume. We tend not to think of as the way we dress as a costume, nor the way we carry things as particularly interesting. But, in fact, how we dress and even how we carry things reflect the culture and times we live in. The backpack that most Stone Soup readers wear to and from school is part of an overall look that is very much of today.  When I was in elementary and middle school in Los Angeles, California, in the 1950s and early 1960s, I did not have a backpack. Nobody did. I think we had something like a briefcase! And we wore clothing that was a little different from what you wear today. I want you to make a photograph, drawing, or painting of you or a friend dressed for school. Create this portrait thinking of it as a letter to someone in the future (10, 20 or 30 years from now). This, your picture says, is how we dressed for school in 2017. This continues to be a busy time for us here at Stone Soup, with lots of exciting changes coming up. One decision we made this week was to increase the frequency of publication for Stone Soup Online from 6 issues per year to 11 issues per year. Beginning in September, Stone Soup will be published monthly during the school year, with a combined July/August summer issue. This means a significant increase in the amount of material we publish. We are thinking that at least some of the issues should be organized around a theme. We’d like your input on whether having themed issues is a good idea, and we’d like to know what you think of some of the themes we are considering. If you have ideas we don’t list, please tell us what they are. Our Short SurveyMonkey Questionnaire Another decision we made this week was to revise the look of stonesoup.com. Is there a website you like a lot that you think we should take inspiration from? Do you have some great ideas of your own? If you do, please let me know by replying to this newsletter’s email address. Send me a link to a great website (it doesn’t have to be a magazine, but it could be), and explain what you think is so good about it. Thank you for help. Until next week, William From the Stone Soup issue: September/October 2005 Forever Untitled Written by Margaret Bryan, 10 Illustrated by Ashley Burke, 12 The feather fluttered to the ground. I looked about me, as if affirming that no one would deprive me of this precious trinket. A red-breasted robin broke out in song. I closed my eyes and breathed in the lightly fragrant aroma of its music.Music. One of the few things in life that can’t be described in words. I relished the robin’s tune for a few short minutes, clutching the feather (which had a texture of raw silk) for the whole experience. The tender autumn air rustled my hair ever so slightly, like that of the first sunshine of spring. The sensation of autumn flooded through me, and “Forever Untitled,” as I had decided to call the robin’s melody, rang through my veins. It seemed as if this day of bliss would never come to an end. But there were other things to be done that day. I slowly strolled home, not wanting to pop the magical bubble which nature had conjured. Read more