Stone Soup Editors

I wanted to run and bide, but my feet were cemented to the ground Illustration by Kamiye Hoang Mai Davis,13, for “Haunted Mansion” by Lyla Lawless,13. Published in Stone Soup, July/August 2007. A note from William Rubel There was an article this week in the British newspaper The Guardian about a group of teenagers in Wales who decided they wanted to make a movie out of a story by the super-famous American author Stephen King. They wrote to him asking whether they could purchase rights to a story for a price they could afford—and he responded immediately: “Yes! I’ll sell you non-commercial rights for $1.00.” You can read the story here. Why do I bring this up? Three reasons. First, to remind you of what you already know—a story or novel can be the starting point for the same story to be told a different way. Today, this different way is most often in the form of a film, though making a play, dance, opera, or podcast is also an option. The second reason is to remind you that when you rework someone else’s creative work, you need to ask permission if you intend to perform the work publicly. And the third reason is to remind you that because you are children, you will often be given permission to do something that grownups might not. Stephen King is unlikely to give me permission to make a film of any of his work for $1.00. So, if you and a group of friends or a club you are part of at your school have something ambitious in mind—like making a movie of a story by a famous author—don’t give up before you start. Write for permission and see what happens! William’s Weekend Project That brings me to the project for today. I want you to take all or part of an existing creative work—“all” would be the complete work, like the complete novel, and “part” might be a chapter or a section—and turn it into something else. That something else could be turning a paragraph into an illustration or turning an illustration into a paragraph. If there is a piece of music that means a lot to you, you could turn it into a dance or a poem—or even a drawing or painting. What I am encouraging you to do here is explore the strengths of different literary and artistic genres. What can you say with words that you cannot say in in a drawing? What can you say in a drawing that you cannot say in words? What can you say in a dance that remains true to a particular piece of music but also expresses something that the music cannot? I think you get the idea. As always, if you come up with something that you are particularly excited about, please send it to our editor, Emma Wood, via the online submission page. Until next week, Great news about anthologies! I have previously mentioned that we are in the process of revising and reissuing the Stone Soup anthologies. I can announce today that the first revised volumes are at the printer, and the rest will follow soon. Joe Ewart, our London-based designer, has just posted the covers to his website. Click on the Stone Soup Book of Animal Stories cover to pull up the rest of the covers. While you are at Joe’s site, then you may want to look around at his other work. Joe is also the designer for Stone Soup’s print issues. Joe brings to Stone Soupa striking, modern-yet-classic design that says to the world “What our writers and artists have to say matters.” My colleague Jane Levi has revised the anthologies by merging earlier editions together—for some topics we had multiple versions of anthologies with the same theme—and by adding material to further round out volumes. For example, 50 poems have been added to the poetry volume! Jane went all the way back to the first issues of Stone Soupin 1973 to find material. What she noticed in doing this is that the quality of Stone Soup’s stories and poems has been remarkably consistent from the start. While I know that those of you writing for Stone Soupare conscious that you’re just starting out as writers, Jane was struck by how much of the work is worth reading, full stop. She found herself sending great stories to her adult friends and having them tell her they had passed them on to their friends, super impressed with the quality. In other words, many of the works are so good that they’d be a credit to any publisher or age group. That is what Stone Soupis about—showing that kids can be creative on a level that does not require readers to downgrade their expectations. In other words, we are about publishing great literature—full stop. Partnership news Miacademy We have an exciting partnership in place with Miacademy, the interactive learning site for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Writing from Stone Soup is being featured on their site, and Miacademy subscribers have the opportunity to submit their work to us as well. As part of this partnership, our friends at Miacademy are offering generous discounts to Stone Soup subscribers: 20–40 percent off, depending on which type of subscription you purchase. To find out more about Miacademy and explore the various services on offer, visit their website and read the information for parents. If you choose to join, simply enter the code STONESOUP2018 at the checkout to receive your discount. Secret Kids contest As readers of this newsletter will already know, we are running a contest in partnership with Mackenzie Press: the Secret Kids Contest. All of the details are on our website—suffice to say that if you are under the age of 18 and working on a long-form piece of writing, you should be thinking about getting it ready to submit by the end of the year. If you do, you’ll have the chance to win a publishing contract for your very own book! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our book reviewers and young

I held them like they were a bouquet of yellow flowers Illustrator Anna Dreher, 12 for Frustration, Happiness, and Pure Amazement by Isabella Widrow, 12. Published November/December 2015. A note from William Rubel Mushrooms! Chanterelles! Delicious and commonplace wild foods for the taking! How I love foraging. Berries, fruits, mushrooms, watercress, wild lettuce, dandelions—it is rare that a week goes by when I don’t bring something back from a walk. All these wild plants and more can provide creative inspiration, and some of them even something to eat. Now, I want to say right away that you must learn about wild foods and think very carefully about the conditions you found them in, before eating anything you pick. The rule for all wild foods, especially mushrooms, is the same: “In case of doubt, throw it out.” Mushrooms come in many colors: red, yellow, orange, grey, black, brown, white, and even green. I think of mushrooms as the flowers of the forest floor. The carpet of yellow chanterelles depicted in Anna Dreher’s drawing is realistic—but this is also the find of a century! I’d be talking about such a find for years afterward. When you collect wild foods, whether those are apples from a city tree that overhangs a sidewalk, watercress in a neighborhood stream, or dandelion from a lawn or piece of disturbed ground in a parking lot, you bring home a story. For this weekend, I’d like you all to at the very least take a walk in your neighborhood. You can expand your quest beyond edible plants and fruits to include flowers. (I am not talking here about picking from your neighbors’ yards, or from rare collections of special plants, of course!) Keep your eyes peeled for herbs, fruits, and flowers that are growing in the public part of streets and lots. You will be surprised at what you find once you start looking. But to write about what you bring home, to talk about the bouquet of yellow flowers from wild lettuces—something I am pretty sure you will find in bloom right now—you need to be able to recognize what you find. Novelists and story writers, like historians, often have to do research to support their stories. When you write about mushrooms or plants, it is helpful to be particular. “We walked through a forest” is less evocative than “We walked through a pine forest.” Just being able to say “pine” helps readers visualize the shape of the trees, imagine walking on trails covered in needles, and smell the unique smell of pine. So go out foraging this weekend. Ideally, go with someone who has some knowledge of plants and fungi, and check with an adult before you pick anything. Look closely at what you find, and learn about it. You can draw the plants you find and press leaves and flowers to dry them. And you can write about it. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of capturing everyday experiences in writing. Finding wild foods and flowers to pick and bring home is a completely different experience from going to the grocery store to pick up fruits, vegetables, and a bouquet. Everything you forage yourself comes with a story. I want you to record this weekend’s foraging stories; then, when you are writing fiction, think back on this exercise to find something you can use to bring life into your fictional story. Until next week Seeking new bloggers and reviewers! We love the book reviews and blogs that we have been publishing lately. We see this work as being on the same level as what’s published in Stone Soup. The blogs let you, our Stone Soup writers, write in genres and styles that don’t quite fit into Stone Soup the literary magazine. We are always looking for more bloggers, so if you are interested, please submit a sample of what you have in mind by going to our online submissions page. I’d like to encourage teachers and homeschooling parents to submit sample pieces too; we are also looking for adult bloggers. Up to this point the online book reviews and blogs have been free for anyone to view. We have just submitted the work order to our programmer to fold the book reviews and blogs into the Stone Soup paywall which will limit the number of free views. By doing so, we are saying to you reviewers and bloggers that your work has value and that it is an important part of the work we publish. The 2018 Stone Soup Annual is nearly ready The 2018 Stone Soup Annual is in production and will soon go to the printer. Sarah Ainsworth has made the selections of reviews and blog posts to be included in that volume. Impressive work. Congratulations to all our artists, writers, reviewers and bloggers! Thank you! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! Are you excited about Halloween? Thinking about your costume? Do not miss Antara’s post with 4 incredible ideas for Halloween costumes you can make yourself. We particularly love the jellyfish (though they are all terrific)! As we move into fall, we also look back at summer with some colorful, inspiring pages from Claire R’s summer journal. Plus, we have another guest post from an adult blogger, this time art history student Sarah Lynn talking about ‘No Boundaries’, the beautiful work of art by Christian Goh, age 9, that we used as our May 2018 cover.   From Stone Soup November/December 2015 Frustration, Happiness, and Pure Amazement By Isabella Widrow, 12 Illustrated by Anna Dreher, 12 How I Found Chanterelles Rain splattered against ice-cold windows, and fat, foggy, clouds hung low. I was in my dad’s twenty-one-year- old Honda Accord, zooming along the highway. It was four-thirty, and I had just gotten out of the two-hour Chinese School that I attend every Sunday. My dad, sister Mia, and I were on our way to a place in the middle of nowhere to find… mushrooms. Chanterelles, to