“Parachuting in City Lights” (watercolor) by Sloka Ganne, 10, (Overland Park, KS) and published in the June 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Jane A new month, a new issue! And this stunning watercolor is our cover, wrapping around the whole print version of the magazine. One of the things I love about our wraparound covers is how they make me focus on very particular parts of an image, which often leads me to see them very differently from the way I see the whole artwork in one. In the case of Sloka Ganne’s gorgeous Parachuting in City Lights, the front cover consists of the more somber right-hand side of the image, with its dark mountain topped with a flashing mast. We can see only the fading part of the sunset’s glimmer, and a lone parachutist. There’s a slightly lonely feeling to it. But when we turn to the back cover, there is a burst of light, and we see that the parachutist is not alone after all: there are two companions, a flock of birds, and a bright blue glow in the sky above the sunset over the brightly lit city. To my mind, the story changes. There is so much happening in this image, and while it tells one big beautiful story all on its own, it can also tell several very different, specific ones if we focus on one section over another. Divide the image up in your mind into quarters or eights, and think about the possible stories behind these smaller sections of the image: focus on the cityscape, the flock of birds and the clouds, the dark landscape, the vibrant sky. How does each one compare to the feelings evoked by the possible narratives of the other parts? Do the stories you imagine fit together, or are they a series of different vignettes (miniature scenes)? How do they relate to the story you sense in the whole? Try writing a series of short stories based on your perceptions of Sloka’s painting and see what you discover! I also urge you to read Steven Cavros’s story “The Sewer People,” an imaginative tour de force in which the trash under the city has a whole complex, politically messy life of its own. It is part cautionary tale, part political satire, part fable—almost a (dark) fairy tale. Let it inspire you to bring alive a hidden, apparently inanimate world, and see where your imagination takes you. As always, if you are happy with what you write or the art you create inspired by any of these ideas, do share them with us.Until next week, Book Contest 2021 For information on submitting to the Stone Soup Book Contest 2021, please click here. To submit your manuscript, please visit our submittable site. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Florence, 12, wrote a review of Katherine Paterson’s classic novel, Bridge to Terabithia. Sofie, 10, wrote a poem centered on the healing power of nature amidst the pandemic. Happiness Neema, 11, a participant of the Stone Soup Refugee Project, wrote a personal narrative about her transition from Kigoma, Tanzani, to Chicago, IL. Aditi,12, reviewed Cathy Hirano’s translation of Nahoko Uehashi’s fantasy novel The Beast Player. Writing classes and Book Club Are you looking for classes to inspire, improve, and practice your writing with great teachers and a group of like-minded young writers and readers? Join us! We do charge fees for our clubs and workshops, but we try to keep them as low as possible, and we offer discounts to subscribers and scholarships to students who need them. Contact us at education@stonesoup.com with any questions. Writing Workshop: we have two writing groups for spring/summer that meet via Zoom every Saturday (except for William’s class, which does not meet for the last Saturday of the month). Come write with us and share your work with your peers. Find out more and register for a workshop at Eventbrite. To see some of the great work produced by current workshop members, read contributions published at Stonesoup.com, or join us at one of our free public readings! Book Club: a book club for writers that meets via Zoom on the last Saturday of every month. Find out more and register for book club at Eventbrite. Check out which books we are reading on our website. Young Author’s Studio Summer Camps: we are offering a wide range of classes through the summer jointly with the Society of Young Inklings. Each camp runs for two hours per day, Monday through Thursday. All details and bookings via Society of Young Inklings. From Stone Soup June 2021 The Sewer People By Steven Cavros, 9 (Hollywood, FL) Now once, long ago, on June 12, 2027, a stray banana peel found its way into the sewers of Orlando, Florida. It travelled through the sewers for twenty minutes, and then it at last came to the very bottom of the sewers, to a deep puddle. Like all the junk there, it joined itself to a sea of junk, and nine minutes later, a little human-like creature with frail limbs stood where eighteen or so bits of junk had come together. All the sewer people came from junk, of course. Hundreds, thousands of the sewer people there were—made from all the junk in the sewers—and no junk ever left the sewers as a banana peel or bit of ripped paper. The sewer people had no government, no economy, no friends. All ignored them, didn’t care for a moment that they existed, ignored them terribly, TERRIBLY. They were forgotten and lost. All the troubles of the world began when an important sewer person, Dirt, proposed a government to his small ring of friends, Junk and Meaningless. But they could not create a government without the support of the 18,000 little frail-limbed sewer people they shared the sewers with. They called a meeting, but in vain, as it ended in chaos. Another meeting, then another, was held until many sewer people approved a government. But as that meeting closed, a new problem arose:
Pandemic Echoes, a poem by Sofie, 10
Sofie Dardzinski Pandemic Echoes by Sofie Dardzinski, 10 An invisible enemy has changed our lives. Lives lost, all too soon. Soon slinks fear, that we contain in isolation. Isolation bringing bitter loneliness; thoughts echoing. Echoing around the world, clouds of chaos and uncertainty. Uncertainty in each other, infected with suspicion. Suspicion of one another, seems like our jobs. Jobs vanishing, economy at a standstill. Still, hope is in our nature. Nature is renewing, the world is clean and quiet. Quiet acts of kindness, binding us together. Together we lead, enlightened by our journey.
Writing Workshop #42: Ekphrasis
An update from William’s forty-second Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 22, plus some of the output published below William started off the Writing Workshop by explaining the concept of Ekphrasis, which typically refers to translating one piece of art from one format to another. As an example, William highlighted the poem “The Ambassador” by Emma Hoff, which was published in the January 2021 issue of Stone Soup. Emma’s inspiration for the poem was a painting by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (picture to the right). Additionally, William discussed Homer’s description of Achilles’s shield, Lucian of Syria’s description of a painting lost in ancient times, and later Boticelli’s painting that interpreted Lucian of Syria’s description. The Challenge: Write a piece that utilizes the technique of ekphrasis by reimagining a visual work of art into words. The Participants: Sierra, Mahika, Charlotte, Madeline, Julia, Lina, Reese, Nova, Mia, Hanbei, Iago, Reese, Peri, Gia, Jonathan, Nami, Sage, Lena A, Wesley, Rachael, Angela, Audrey, Grace, Delight, Jaya, Lena, Helen, Chelsea, Leo, Margaret. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Face of Time Nami Gajcowski, 11 I talked, but I could hear my words filing into her ear and out of another like a string of music notes. She held her violin at playing position, but when I asked her to play something, she just looked at the brown mahogany that the instrument was made out of and didn’t say anything. I took out my violin and played a drawn-out and mournful tune. She didn’t notice, or she didn’t care. I wasn’t sure which. I was impatient. I couldn’t teach music to a student who would only stand motionless. So, I sent her away a half-hour early.She didn’t move, but she said the first thing I heard her say during this violin lesson: “I will leave when I want to.” She wasn’t being defiant. Or maybe she was, but she used her words and twisted them into an innocent tone. So, I let her stay. I let her stay and stare at her violin. I made stabs of conversation. She never responded. I tried playing a lively tune. She continued to look like stone. Out of the blue, she stood up. Still holding her violin, she went to the coat hanger and grabbed her brown cloak off the golden hook. She set down her violin to fasten her cape. “Are you going?” I asked. She finished fastening her cape and grabbed her violin. It was eerie the silence that she made. Her footsteps didn’t make a sound. Her cape didn’t rustle. She opened the red doors, and quietly stepped outside my house. I stared at her. Something was intriguing. I knew that there was more to uncover to her. I felt that her silence held a secret. Maybe deep loss or unbearable pain. However, when her mother had dropped her off at my house for her first violin practice, she had maintained a stiff smile. That was probably for her talkative and over-eager mother. But when her mother left, her lopsided smile diapered, and she took a seat in front of my desk. She swiveled the chair to face my direction, and she picked up her violin as if she were about to play. She never did, though, and then that’s when I began to speak even though I wasn’t sure if she was listening. I stared outside my window. She walked down the street that was wet from rain, her violin in hand. I didn’t know where she was going, but there was something peculiar about her footsteps. Unlike when she was in the house, her footsteps made an ominous and echoing sound. I could hear her footsteps from across the street. The rain wet the ringlets of her brown hair. Though it wasn’t the brown I saw in my house. It looked a different color. Though if it were a color, what color was it? It seemed to change with the wind. It was unpredictable. It was changing. She looked like the corpse of time. Or maybe she was time itself. Her figure suddenly changed from a 12-year-old girl to an adult with a broad stance. She seemed to be ageing by the minute. Then, she disappeared. Had she died? No, now she was a baby. An innocent and gentle baby. There was nothing more to her, but she kept on crawling down the street as she began ageing again. However, there was something odd with the street. I had walked down it many times before, but something was different. It stretched out and into the rain. It was never-ending. The cheery buildings turned a drab grey. I could still see the girl. She was walking, but instead of going farther down the street, she seemed not to be moving forward. Suddenly, she turned back into the girl in my house. When I was teaching her the violin. She was the 12-year-old girl with brown hair that matched the color of her cape. I touched the window. Its smooth glass was now somewhat bumpy. Smoke billowed out of the girl’s cloak. The street turned to normal. The window became smooth. The girl disappeared. I never saw her again, but little did I know, she would change my life. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Horses in the Snow Lina Kim, 11 The two majestic horses plunged through the snow, tossing snowflakes off of the ground. The mare on the left had fur the color of a chestnut and a mane and tail the shade of peanut butter. A light sprinkle of snow coated her back. Beside her, on her right, was a stallion, black as night. Both had a small streak of white starting on their foreheads between their eyes, reaching down until it touched their muzzles. Snow-covered trees reached up to touch the light orange-pink sky. One tree’s thin trunk had bent over. The red-orange leaves coated in white reached to the ground desperately, but the trunk refused to give in,
