Stone Soup Editors

“One Horse”. Photograph by Lara Katz, 14, Weston, CT. Published April 2018. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Good morning! Do you ever wonder what former Stone Soup contributors are up to these days? We do! There are a lot of former contributors, after all—we’ve been publishing since 1973! We wanted to find a way to spotlight some of the amazing people who were published in Stone Soup and went on to do all sorts of cool things. So, starting this month, we’ll post short interviews with former contributors to the blog. First up, we have Catherine Winings. Catherine’s illustrations were published in our November/December 2009 issue, alongside the story “The Balance” by Kia Okuma. Stone Soup: What are you doing now? Catherine Winings: I am currently living and working in Chicago. I received a BFA about two years ago from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I focused in printmaking, painting/drawing, and visual communications. I discovered etching in my first printmaking class and have been working in that medium ever since. I began working as an intern at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative (CPC) three years ago, and I still work there, helping to manage the studio. While at CPC, I also began printing editions and artist’s proofs of etchings for the artist Tony Fitzpatrick and occasionally other artists. When I have time, I work in the CPC studio on my own etchings and other prints. Additionally, I have been working on a project for the Art Institute of Chicago museum creating replica armor. My role in the project is to paint a resist (a type of painting technique) onto the armor in an intricate pattern that is later etched into the metal using copper sulfate. I also work at a framing shop SS: What did Stone Soup mean to you? CW: If I remember correctly, I only ever submitted one illustration to Stone Soup because I was near the end of the age limit at the time. It was pretty exciting to me to have my drawing published. I have always spent a lot of time drawing and reading, so it came naturally for me to be interested in illustration. I also had an art teacher, Susanne Dassel, who went to the Rhode Island School of Design for illustration and was always supportive of my narrative-based drawing. Being paid for my illustration gave the whole e   xperience a feeling of professionalism and reinforced the idea that I had something to offer through drawing. I think the envelope I received from Stone Soup is still taped to either my wall or the side of my bookcase in my childhood bedroom. Even though I have moved in a slightly different direction since then, I am still interested in illustration and feel that the kind of imagery that I currently use in my printmaking is closely tied to SS: Do you have any advice for current readers, writers, and artists who contribute to Stone Soup? CW: My advice would be to value your own work and invest in it. I have often been very self-conscious about the things that I make or at times have felt out of place, but I think it is very important to believe in your own creative impulses and then to put in the effort to back it up. Even if the work you’ve done isn’t obvious to other people, you can feel confident knowing what you’ve put into it. Rather than just pushing yourself as hard as you can, I think it is more important to take the time to figure out what you want to do, care about what you do, and make productive decisions. Thank you so much to Catherine! We’re so excited to hear from other contributors. Know any that you think should be featured? Have them email me at sarah@stonesoup.com. Happy weekend! Focus on poetry for National Poetry Month! To celebrate National Poetry month, we are offering a discount on the wonderful Stone Soup Book of Poetry, a collection of 120 poems published in Stone Soup between 1988 and 2011. Pick up print copies at 25% off, and eBook editions at half price in the Stone Soup Online Store, throughout April 2019. And, for more poetry ideas, don’t forget to visit the Academy of American Poets’ website–especially, check our their Dear Poet initiative. Just click on the logo: Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. There’s been lots of news about outer space lately—did you see the picture of the black hole? Well, this week Ishayyu writes about galaxies for the blog: “A spiral galaxy looks like an octopus, with its ‘arms’ swinging around. We live on one of the outer part of an ‘arm’ in the Milky Way.” Read more here. Plus, Elijah reviews the website Reddit, where he gets news: “With so much content available to us, what is the best way to browse the internet and find the information that we care about? The answer is Reddit, an online social media and news sharing application as well as the best way to find content over the internet.” What do you think? Do you agree with Elijah, or do you still prefer to read a newspaper or watch the news? Share a comment on his post if you have any thoughts on the subject. From Stone Soup, April 2018 lonely boy By Gilbert Huang, 9 Shanghai, China Who am I, am I just a lonely boy? When I am lonely I feel wild. Does nobody want me? Or do I have to stay here forever? Well, I will be crashed by a car? What shall I do. I need a real life! I am very far to become a normal boy. Read more reflective poetry at our website, Stonesoup.com. 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

“Color City,” paper collage by Adhi Sukhdial, 7 Illustration for “The Juggle Man,” a poem by Analise Braddock, 7 Published April 2019 A note from Emma Wood Although I love to read in all genres, I am always particularly excited to read the poetry submissions to Stone Soup since I am a poet. For me, the “wow factor,” the main thing that makes me sit up straighter in my chair as I read poetry submissions, is not beauty or even emotion but strangeness. The poet Wallace Stevens once said, “A poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully.” What does this mean to you? To me, this means that a poem should operate just on the edges of reason and rational thinking. It should tell me something that I don’t quite understand. The poem should force me to spend time with it, to read and reread it, and, with each rereading, to come closer to my own understanding of it. When I was in school, I was taught to see a poem as a puzzle I had to decode. I’m not advocating for that kind of reading. However, the best poems are the ones you want to reread, and that grow and change as you do. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a poem from the April issue: “The Juggle Man” by Analise Braddock, who wrote it at age seven. You can scroll down to read it at the end of this letter. “The Juggle Man” is dark and funny and weird. It is separate from my reality—from the world I live in and the way I think. It is up to something… but what exactly? That is a question I am still asking myself. I didn’t understand this poem when I first read it, and I still don’t—even after reading it maybe 30 times. It was precisely because I didn’t understand it that I knew I needed to publish it. But what does it mean to “understand” a poem? In school, we tend to learn that this means “finding” a “hidden message” or moral. We want to get something out of a poem—some wisdom or an idea. We want to use the poem. But, as another poet, William Carlos Williams said: “Don’t try to work it out; listen to it. Let it come to you. Sit back, relax… Let the thing spray in your face. Get the feeling of it; get the tactile sense of something, something going on…Don’t attempt to understand the modern poem; listen to it.” And as Stevens also said, “People should like poetry the way a child likes snow.” This weekend—the first weekend of National Poetry Month!—I encourage you to read some poems, and I give you permission to simply enjoy them. Whisper them to yourself. Declaim them to your parents after dinner. Sing them to a tune of your own making. Try to really feel and hear the language. Only after that should you try to write your own poem. One place you might start is with your own dreams. Dreams, like poems, operate within their own unique world, filled with bizarre images and nonsensical rules. Start by describing a dream, and see where the poem takes you from there. Once you’re done, send what you’ve written to us at Stone Soup.   To celebrate National Poetry month we are offering a discount on the wonderful Stone Soup Book of Poetry, a collection of 120 poems published in Stone Soup between 1988 and 2011. Pick up print copies at 25% off, and eBook editions at half price in the Stone Soup Online Store, throughout April 2019. And, for more poetry ideas, don’t forget to visit the Academy of American Poets’ website–especially, check our their “Dear Poet” initiative.   Our spring contest and partnership news Write for a podcast: Closing date April 15 Our current contest, in partnership with the By Kids, for Kids Story Time podcast, to write a short story about climate change or other environmental theme. Your work could become a dramatized reading, broadcast on the podcast, and be published in an issue of Stone Soup! All the details about entries and prizes are on our website contest pages. Summer writing mentorship program for 9th-graders and up: Application deadline April 15 We’ve partnered with The Adroit Journal, a literary magazine for teens. The applications for their Summer Mentorship program, which takes place from June to August, are open now. This program pairs young writers in grades 9 through 12 with an experienced writer who helps them learn more about the creative process. We know this is for an audience older than ours, but if you are a former reader or contributor, or know any teenagers who are aspiring writers, encourage them to apply! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Rizwan takes us through A Day in the Life in the Amazon Rainforest. Macaws, jaguars, ants and more! Click on the link to read Rizwan’s account a day in a bustling ecosystem. In Being a Fan, Thomas describes the emotional experience of watching his favorite team compete in the Copa America: “A sinking feeling tried to penetrate my confidence, but I wouldn’t let it. I had believed in this team for too long for them to let me down now.” From Stone Soup, April 2019 The Juggle Man By Annalise Braddock, 7 One day I went to the juggle place and on a shelf sat the juggle man. He said to me you took a juggle now give it back to me. The owner of the juggle place said to go home and then she called the police. The police said outside there is young poor Sally with balls in hand but cannot juggle. Then the police said on a Monday you took a suitcase on Tuesday you took a toothbrush and on Friday you poured milk. What a bad girl you have been. You can hear Analise talking about how she came to write her poem at Soundcloud   Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall,