First Place ($50) “Steam” by Sabrina Guo, 12 Second Place ($25) “Moonlight” by Ashley Xu, 13 Third Place ($10) “Octopus” by Marco Lu, 12 Honorable Mentions “Snowflake” by Emma Almaguer, 13 “A Tree” by Andrew Lin, 8 “The Cloud” and “Disappearing” by Madeline Nelson, 12 “Seeing the Sea,” Maya Viswanathan, 12 Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated; we all had fun reading and simply looking at your creations. The pieces that ended up standing out to us were the ones that not only showed us the writer had a clear understanding of the concrete poem but that used the shape of the poem to emphasize and illustrate the text. For instance, in “Steam” by Sabrina Guo, a poem in the shape of a steaming cup of tea, the word “interrupting” is itself interrupted by the handle of the mug: “interrup” is on one side of the handle, and “ting” is on the other. In that poem, Guo writes of “slow curling spirals” of steam, just as the text itself spirals around, forcing the reader to turn the page, creating a dizzying effect. What I love about the concrete poem is that it brings the relationship between the form (or shape) of the poem and its content (or text) to the forefront. Sometimes when we are writing, we simply default to the “usual” form without thinking about it. But in the best pieces of writing, the form is something that emerges from the ideas and narratives represented in the text. You can usually tell if this is the case by trying to rewrite the poem or story in a different form. If your poem feels the same in prose as it does in stanzas with lines, then it probably doesn’t need to be in stanzas! I hope you will try this with a piece of writing you are struggling with, and see if it opens up more ideas. We will publish the winning submissions in Stone Soup in 2019.
Writing Activity: working with dialogue
The most remarkable part of Lena’s story as a demonstration of the power of dialogue is the last quarter, where four characters respond to a traumatic event. This section, beginning with the “No!” spoken by the narrator and continuing to the end, depends heavily on dialogue. It could almost be a play. Notice that, although the lines spoken by Sandy, Carrie, Mom, the narrator, and Mrs. Hall are often very short, we get a clear sense of how each character differs from the others and how they relate to each other as family, friends, and neighbors. This is accomplished through the narrative that accompanies the dialogue.
Saturday Newsletter: September 29, 2018
“Tiny only barks at you if he doesn’t know you” Illustrator Chelsey Scheffe, 13 for The Shooting Star by Samantha Cecil, 10. Published September/October 2004. A note from William Rubel Print is back! Yes, home delivery is back. We started printing Stone Soup again last January and are now pleased to be able to tell you that we are restarting subscription-based delivery of beautifully printed Stone Soup issues to your mailbox!* What is different between now and before? One difference is that we now publish eleven times per year. As a print subscriber you will receive a copy of Stone Soup in your mailbox every month between September and June. In July, you will receive the summer double issue. What else is different? For those of you who haven’t looked at the PDFs or purchased a print copy, you’ll find that the new Stone Soup is more colorful than before and has a dynamic, updated design. And the content is more varied—we accept a wider range of media in our art submissions (photography included), and we publish more standalone art. There are special thematic issues, such as poetry, food, science writing, historical fiction, and more. The issues also vary in length a little—some of our special issues, such as science writing or food, are a few pages longer than the others. For the new Stone Soup we turned to the highly respected London-based designer Joe Ewart. Joe is known in London museum and art circles as the go-to designer for catalogues and monographs (art books devoted to a single artist). We asked him to give us a look that will graphically put our young contributors’ writing and art on a par with the literary and artistic work of adults—that is what Stone Soup is all about, after all—and he did! Sneak preview! Look at these gorgeous covers and inside pages from issues between January and September. What is the difference between a print subscription and a digital subscription? We publish the best writing (fiction, poetry, and some short nonfiction) and art that is sent to us, around thirty pages per issue. If you buy a print-only subscription, you will receive the physical magazine in your mailbox. In addition, we now publish book reviews every week on our website, and every week we also publish blog posts by Stone Soup writers on the wide range of topics that our contributors and subscribers care about—from sewing to sport, family life to environmental issues. So, when you subscribe to the digital Stone Soup you get the current issues of the magazine in digital form, plus about 20 years’ worth of back issues, plus the book reviews and blog posts already mentioned. You also receive access to activities linked to the writing and art stored online, as well as music, interviews with authors, and more. Our new order page has all the details, with packages that allow you to choose print, digital, or a bundle with both. Stone Soup is the perfect gift for any creative child between the ages of 7 and 13. Please join us for another year of new issues, and help us spread the word that not only are we are still here after 45 years, we are back in print! Until next week *Subscriptions including home delivery of print issues are currently only available in the U.S. and Canada. Individual print issues can be delivered from the Stone Soup online store to other regions of the world. This week’s story and art from the archives Thirteen-year-old Chelsey Scheffe’s bold, colorful illustrations complement 10-year-old Samantha Cecil’s powerful story about the challenges and tribulations of school popularity in “The Shooting Star.” Read on to discover if the school nerd Darren’s wish upon a star, to become popular at school, comes true—and how matters unfold… We hope you enjoy the art and writing we bring to you from our archives every Saturday! You can peruse the illustrations and read the first few paragraphs in the newsletter, and then click through to our site using the ‘more’ link at the bottom of the story section to read the rest. Remember, subscribers have full, unlimited access to the whole archive on the Stone Soup website. Non subscribers can read a limited number of stories, poems and posts. Don’t miss the latest content from our book reviewers and young bloggers at Stonesoup.com! This week, the Stone Soup editors have been busy adding material that might be interesting or inspirational for those of you thinking of entering the Secret Kids Contest that we announced a few weeks ago. The top prize for the contest is a book deal with a publisher, which we think is a great incentive to start polishing up your best long-form work. Be ready to submit before January 1, 2019! The contest is accepting work from kids as young as 5, and up to age 18, in four age groups (meaning there are four prizes to be awarded). This week, we have been looking into juvenilia produced by writers from the past who later became famous adult writers—writers like Jane Austen, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the Brontës. We have also put up the text of Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visiters, a classic work of child fiction initially published in the early decades of the twentieth century. Enjoy, be inspired, and don’t miss this opportunity to reach an even wider audience with your own long-form fiction. He closed his eyes and whispered, “I wish I was popular at school” From Stone Soup September/October 2004 The Shooting Star By Samantha Cecil, 10 Illustrated by Chelsey Scheffe, 13 Darren Milar sighed as he walked into the schoolyard. All around him kids were laughing, running, and playing. The sound of tetherball chains as they clinked against their metal poles rang out as Darren passed. When kids started school again, they were sometimes nervous, excited, or a little sad. But that was nothing compared to what Darren felt. Ever since kindergarten, Darren had been the outcast. The nerd, if you had to put it that way. Other kids had had loads of friends, and turned against him. Darren had only one friend, Ian, and Ian was just
