First Place Three Days Till EOC by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, 11 (Novel) Second Place The Golden Elephant by Analise Braddock, 8 (Poetry) Searching for Bow and Arrows by Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, 11 (Poetry) Third Place Elana by Hannah Nami Gajcowski, 9 (Novel) Honorable Mentions Leather Journal, Abhainn Bajus, 14 (Poetry) The Hidden Key, Peri Gordon, 9 (Novel) Frozen Nocturne, Sabrina Guo, 13 (Poetry) The Demisers, Zoe Keith, 11 (Novel) Last Birthday Boy, Olivia Ladell, 13 (Novel) Family of Spies, Micah Lim, 10 (Novel) Escape the War, Priyanka Nambiar, 13 (Novel) A Brief Encounter with Chaos, Anyi Sharma, 11 (Stories) We are excited to announce the winners of Stone Soup’s first annual book contest, and we can’t wait to share their work with you in 2020. Although we are only able to give official recognition to a handful of writers, all of us were blown away by the care and effort put into these manuscripts. Writing a book takes time, patience, and dedication, and these writers proved to us that they have these qualities in spades. Once again, as with previous contests, we were moved by how many of these manuscripts dealt with climate change in one way or another. Our winning novel by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, Three Days Till EOC, takes a powerful, creative approach to this topic, as does Analise Braddock in many of her poems in her collection. The Golden Elephant. Meanwhile, in her poetry collection, Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer explores themes of historical and political loss alongside the enduring beauty and solace found in nature. Finally, in Elana, Hannah Nami Gajcowski takes us on a mad, magical adventure through an alternate universe. All of the books will be forthcoming in 2020. We can’t wait for you to read them!
Saturday Newsletter: September 14, 2019
‘Free as a Bird’Mixed media collage by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada). Published September 2019. A note from Sarah Ainsworth I am a big fan of collages and all of the artistic possibilities they represent. If you look at the fine print to see what medium they are, it usually says “mixed media.” The category of “mixed media” has always struck me as an unfair standardization of such varied artwork. But at the same time, those two words do give the artist room to explore—after all, there are so many media you can mix! Plus, it lends an air of mystery to artwork, as a viewer is often left wondering what materials they did mix. I was excited to see two of Sage Millen’s collages published in this month’s issue (one of them featured in last week’s Newsletter). In the one featured above, Free as a Bird, can you identify all of the materials that Sage used? How many “layers” of media are there? My challenge for you this weekend is simply to create a collage. You can begin by assembling the materials you’d like to use, like magazines or colored paper. Is there anything in your recycling bin that you could use (and is clean enough to handle)? Maybe you want to incorporate some natural elements, as Sage does in her pieces. Then the fun begins! If you create a collage you’re proud of, please send it to us via Submittable so we can consider it for publication! Happy weekend, Fundraising Update: the Refugee Project has almost reached its target already! We are overwhelmed. Within days of launching our appeal for donations toward our Refugee Project, you had already donated almost all of our total goal! We set $5,000 as our target, thinking it was a huge stretch and that we’d be lucky to get even halfway there. But we only need $300 more to make it. Yes, our readers and supporters have already donated an incredible $4,700 to this project. You are all just amazing. Thank you! It’s obvious that this initiative means as much to our readers as it does to us. Besides being delighted to have the funding in place to support the creative journeys of kids in refugee camps, the whole Stone Soup team is really buoyed up by knowing that you, our extended Stone Soup family, are in this with us. This is our fall fundraiser, and the season has barely begun. That $5,000 target is clearly in view, and maybe we are going to beat it! Click the button below if you want to join in supporting this project. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Take a look at the beautiful artwork that former contributor Jessica Libor creates in the interview we published with her from Tuesday. Jessica illustrated two stories from 2000, “A Strike for the Wind” and “A Christmas Wish,” and wrote and illustrated “Seventeen Years,” from 2001. Her interview is full of great advice. From Stone Soup, September 2019 Trenza Francesa, French Braids By Alina Samarasan, 12 (Brookline, MA) Illustrated by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada) “¡Ven aquí, Carlita! ¡No puedes ir a la escuela así! Tu cabello es un desastre!” Come here, Carlita! You can not go to school like that! Your hair is a mess! I walk into the room and sit down so Mamá can reach my hair, wishing that she spoke English. Then I wouldn’t be so embarrassed at school. Then no one would tell me to go back to Mexico. My family’s from Cuba, not Mexico, and I wasn’t even born there. I was born here, unlike most of the kids at school, but that doesn’t really matter. Don’t be like them, my big brother said. Don’t fall to their level. You’re better than them, Carlita. And make that known. …/MORE Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
Former Contributor Interview: Jessica Libor
Editor’s Note: our Former Contributors Interview Project showcases former contributors of Stone Soup and the wonderful things they’ve gone on to do. Jessica Libor illustrated “A Strike for the Wind,” from our March/April 2000 issue, “A Christmas Wish,” from November/December 2000, and wrote and illustrated “Seventeen Years,” from July/August 2001. SS: What are you doing now? I’m living in Philadelphia, currently working as a drawing and painting teacher at Harcum College. I also am the founder of a pop-up gallery “Era Contemporary” and paint and create artwork! I have a solo exhibition coming up on September 4th at the Da Vinci Art Alliance called “Nature’s Daughters.” I love making work about nature and femininity and how they integrate. I work in oil paints and real gold and silver leaf, and my work has a strong storytelling aspect to it! “The Butterflies,” a painting by Jessica from 2019 SS: What did Stone Soup mean to you? JL: Stone Soup was one of my first successes as a young artist, and made me feel like I could actually take a career in art seriously! I remember when I had a story and pictures both published and I felt like I had “made it!” It seriously meant a lot to me, and the feeling that people would see value in my work was embedded in my mind at that young age. It definitely helped propel my vision for the future as an artist! SS: Do you have any advice for current readers, writers, and artists who contribute to Stone Soup? JL: Yes, I would say always create from the heart and not for acclaim or success. Anything created with passion from the heart will always touch people in a much stronger way than anything you would create just to publish or to sell. Think about the things that you are passionate about and let that carry your work! When I wrote the story that was published in Stone Soup, I stayed up late for a week typing it all up on my typewriter, getting lost in the story because I had to get it onto paper. Only afterwards did I worry about where I would send it! Also, be disciplined in practicing your craft. To get good at art takes a lot of time, energy and focus, but it is worth it to see your vision come to life! Are you a former Stone Soup writer or artist and interested in being interviewed? We’d love to hear from you! Please reach out to sarah@stonesoup.com for more information.
