Stone Soup Editors

  Which Way Car Wash by Nicholas Taplitz, 13 (Los Angeles, CA)Published in Stone Soup November 2019, illustrating “A Monarch’s Way” by Alexa Rivera Rockwood, 12 (Potomac, MD) A note from William Rubel Before talking about this photograph and the story “A Monarch’s Way Through,” I want to once again thank all of you who contributed to our Refugee Project drive. Thanks to your help, we will soon have a hiring announcement of someone who will join our staff to work on the project. If you haven’t read Alicia Xin’s blog post, “Thoughts on Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” then please do. Alicia makes an explicit connection between past and present refugees. There is a blog section in every Newsletter. I just want to remind all of you to check out our Stone Soup blogs, and to leave comments. Thank you. The photo! Besides it being a perfect match for the story about the monarch butterfly facing urban barriers on its way to Mexico (which you will find, below), this is an extraordinary work of art. As you look at this photograph, I want you to imagine yourself framing this image. What are you looking for? Why do you press the button to take the photograph when the scene is framed just so? What are you lining up? As you imagine yourself shooting this image, I think you will find you will find that Nicholas Taplitz, the photographer, is guiding you. Let’s start by looking at the flat surfaces that sit parallel to the ground, like tabletops. There is the roof of the UPS truck, the top of the sign that says “Car Wash” and has the red arrow, the top of the big sign, etc. Of course, there is also the ground. Then, there are the vertical surfaces that are perpendicular to the ground: I’d say there are the vertical sides you can see, like part of one side of the UPS truck and the side of the big sign in the middle, the sign with the pigeons on top, and then there are verticals you cannot see but that you can imagine. Nicholas seems to be helping us see this scene as one being composed of rectangular shapes. A scene in which the flat surfaces, or planes, create patterns that we can see and that we cannot see but can imagine. The way the photograph is framed, at first it can be hard to understand the space—then you see, Wow! There is that tiny chair down there on the right, and the UPS truck on the street—and then you realize that this photo is taken from a very high vantage point. You will also begin to notice the colors—the red of the arrow, the faded red of the car wash sign, the bright red of the $49.99. The yellow of the UPS letters, of the first sign by the truck, and of the painted car-stop by the chair. So much to look at! For this weekend’s main project, I want you to take your phone or camera and look for a scene that you can frame to bring out its geometric structure—rectangles in the case of Nicholas’s photograph, but you might find something with lots of curves, or straight or squiggly lines. The point is that I want you to look beyond the subject of the photograph to something that one might say is more universal, that is larger than your subject. What I mean by this is that Nicholas’s photograph is of a car wash, but it is not really about a car wash. The photograph doesn’t tell you anything about what a car wash is or how one works. The place is just a setting for something bigger that Nicholas is working on. I would put that bigger thing down as “how to see.” This week’s featured story, “A Monarch’s Way Through,” is a perfect illustration of how fiction is different from an essay. In fiction, you show but do not tell. In other words, you let your scenes, your characters, you story say what you want to say. You tell a good tale; you don’t give a lecture. Where I live, in Santa Cruz, California, there are several trees where monarchs overwinter. The monarch population in California that winters in Mexico, like the monarch in Alexa’s story, is down over 99 percent in the last 30 years. There were millions of these butterflies, and now there are only tens of thousands. Already in decline, in 1998 250,000 butterflies were counted in three Santa Cruz groves where they stop for the winter. Last year there were 4,200 in those same trees. There isn’t one single reason for the decline in the monarch butterfly population, but one big reason is definitely habitat loss. Alexa does a brilliant job of helping us imagine ourselves as a butterfly trying to migrate through an unfriendly terrain created by humans. Nicholas’s car wash photograph perfectly captures one of the big problems for these amazing migrating butterflies—a great deal of what we build completely excludes the natural world. Besides us, only scrappy creatures like pigeons can thrive in it. I really want you to focus on photography this weekend, but if you have extra time for creative energy, then write a story or poem that will help your readers to feel some of the challenges facing one of your favorite wild things. As always, send Editor Emma Wood what you create so she can consider it for Stone Soup. Until next week, Current Contest: Personal Narrative The way we approach fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as both readers and writers, is drastically different. For this reason, we’re happy to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with  Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest and that, in 2020, we will begin to publish all nonfiction under its very own label in the magazine. What makes this contest extra special is our partnership with Society of Young Inklings (SYI): we are very excited to share that their team of professional writers has

Lady in Red by Alexa Zhang, 9 (Los Altos, CA) illustrating “Windsong” by Emma McKinny, 13 (Old Fort, NC) Published in Stone Soup October 2019   A note from William Rubel I had written my letter to you for the week in the lobby of a Tokyo hotel where Jane Levi (you know her as one of our Newsletter writers) and I were finishing breakfast and waiting to leave to take our flight back to San Francisco. I had wanted to share something of our adventures in Japan, but then, on the train to the airport I re-read the current issue, October 2019. The last story in the issue, “Windsong,” by Emma McKinny, along with its illustration, “Lady in Red,” by Alexa Zhang left me speechless. Both story and illustration are just incredible. I can’t write about both the illustration and the story as the Newsletter would be so long most of you would give up, so I will concentrate on the story. But, please, spend time with painting as well. The story, “Windsong”, is a masterful piece of prose that shakes me to the core. The prose style is varied, the protagonist’s viewpoint as a child insider at the opera is unique, and the author’s command of language is unusually strong. She expresses very complex and meaningful ideas and feelings with grace and ease. It is a powerful personal narrative, and we say more about personal narratives in the details of our new contest, in partnership with Young Inklings, which is discussed below. It also makes great use of framing which is the subject of this week’s activity. “Windsong” is about going to a performance of Dr. Atomic, an opera by John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellers. Her father is the lead singer. You can use your research skills to  get information on the  actual performance and its reviews online, but I want to focus on one element of the story — the way in which Emma frames her narrative. Framing is, then, also going to be this week’s writing project. The basic history you need to know is that the United States invented and tested the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II. The bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were developed in Los Alamos. These bombs ended the war with Japan. Japan surrendered after they were dropped. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of civilizations were killed by these weapons, whole sections of the two cities that were the victims of these bombs were obliterated. These bombs gave humans god-like powers which J. Robert Openhiemer, director of the lab, and the Dr. in the opera’s title, Dr. Atomic, understood. He quickly became concerned about the consequences of his invention. You also need to know that Los Alamos is visible from Santa Fe and this is especially true at night when its lights glow from the mountain ridge where it is located. Back to framing! The story takes place in the Santa Fe Opera House, a fabulous outdoor theater that sits under the distant gaze of Los Alamos, the place where the bomb-making that is the center of the opera’s story took place. With this in mind, please read the first paragraph. Now, please read the story. And, now, please focus on the last three paragraphs. Emma has gone through a huge emotional experience during the Opera. Those of you who attend operas, ballet, and traditional theater may have experienced these deep emotional moments. My daughter has leaned over to me during ballet performances to whisper, “Dada, don’t cry until the curtain goes down.” And then there is the clapping. And the lights go back up. And then you have to get up from your seat and drive home behaving normally with this deeply emotional experience still inside you, “turmoil boiling in the pit of” ones stomach, as Emma puts it. Then, she does something brilliant. She gives feeling and emotion to the wind which blows through the Santa Fe Opera house — it is an open air theater — and picks up her feelings. She whispers to the wind the same phrase she had called out to her father in the beginning, thus transferring the art of the opera to nature. Let the wind howl, like a wolf, adding its voice to the power of theater. You can read and follow this week’s activity here. Please take a look, try framing, and send us what you produce. Until next week, Contests, Partnership & Project News We are very excited to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest. You have until December 15, 2019 to write and perfect your personal narratives with the help and support of Society of Young Inklings, which has created instructional games and activities to help you write and perfect your pieces! Finally, the first 150 submitters will receive personalized feedback letters from the writers at Young Inklings. We can’t wait to read your work! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! We posted another piece in blogger Marco Lu’s series on science fiction. Check out “Steam and Gleam: A Look at Steampunk” to learn more about the well known sub-genre within science fiction. Our Spring fundraiser, to widen Stone Soup’s access to marginalised communities, is still open for donations! This campaign is to help support us in providing a new benefit for Public Libraries: free submissions for all of their patrons. We want to enable children across the country who cannot have their own subscription not only to read Stone Soup, but also submit their work for free. When you purchase one of the last remaining copies of our archival “Special Navajo Issue” from March/April 1989, all proceeds will be put toward helping Stone Soup reach marginalized communities. You can donate to this campaign via the link below, or visit our store to purchase a copy of our 1989 Special Navajo Issue.   From Stone Soup, October 2019