Glimmer (Panasonic ZS200) by Sage Millen, 13; published in Stone Soup November 2022 A special announcement from William Dear Friends! Firstly, on a personal note, I hope you all have a truly fabulous Christmas Day. My daughter and I will cook our Christmas meal on our fireplace. Some years ago, I wrote a book called The Magic of Fire. So, you can imagine us eating by candlelight in a room dancing with shadows, standing outside of time and place. Our table is from 1800, and our silverware from the same period. I have piano sconces on the walls in all of our rooms so at night we move within this lovely soft light. I have tried to make a home in which poetry is life. However, we are not in the eighteenth century, so the day after Christmas you may imagine my daughter and I strapped into an airplane seat heading for New York. As my daughter is now sixteen, this will be our first visit to New York City when we can do more adult things—magic shows, cabaret, off-Broadway plays. We are both very excited! I wish each of you the best for this holiday, and may next year be a healthy and rewarding year for all of you. And now, for the Stone Soup news! I have the best Stone Soup news imaginable! News that is so good I cannot even believe it myself: After fifty years, I have just stepped down as President and CEO of Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., turning over that role to our brilliant and beyond competent editor, Emma Wood. This is a generational shift. Emma is roughly forty years younger than I am. This will make Stone Soup young again. I find it totally amazing that it has all worked out. There is no better outcome for Stone Soup than to have Emma as its leader. You all know Emma’s work as editor of Stone Soup. Under her direction the magazine has thrived as the preeminent showcase and support community for young writers and artists. Her work with the Stone Soup Annual Book Contest broke new ground in the history of publishing creative work by young authors. What you will not know is that in addition to being a gifted editor, she is also massively competent in ways that I am not. She brings to Stone Soup the management skills Stone Soup needs to thrive. Under Emma’s leadership, the future of Stone Soup is assured. The first issue of the magazine was published in May 1973. I can’t imagine a better 50th-anniversary present for Stone Soup than Emma Wood—poet, translator, editor, and now our new leader. If Stone Soup could talk, it would also say, “Thank you, Emma, for giving me new life!” I am seventy. I am a writer with, what can I say, too many irons in the fire! There are so many it is an embarrassment. Most pressing, I have a big book on the history of bread that is “out of contract,” a polite name for a book that is not just late, but super, super late! I should now be able to complete my Book of Bread by this time next year. I have a big project concerning Amanita muscaria, the mushroom you will all know from the mushroom emoji and cartoons—the mushroom with a red cap and white dots. A lab that a colleague and I have been working with for a couple years is just completing the lab work to support my previously published assertion that the mushroom is edible after parboiling. The lab will be publishing the discovery in a food science journal, and then I have a lot of writing to do for the popular press. Plus, many, many more other writing projects in various states of completion. So, for me, I am looking to sprint in the next ten years to complete what I can. So, don’t imagine me with my feet up taking in the sun on a tropical beach. I will be writing. Everyday. And because I love teaching my students, I will continue teaching my Saturday creative writing class, next on offer in the spring. To offer continuity, I am also staying on the Board of Children’s Art Foundation. As I step down after fifty years, the favor you can do for me, the thank you you can offer me for my work here, is to please give Emma your support in any way you can. In the next newsletter, the last of this year, Emma will be writing to you as Stone Soup’s President with full authority over the company. As she develops her plans, I am sure she will be reaching out to you collectively, and in some cases, individually. She will, for sure, be asking for financial support to enable her to realize her dreams for the organization. I suspect she may also be asking some of you to help with skills that will help her implement her programs. I strongly encourage you to attend the Donor Meeting on January 14th to hear more about her vision for Stone Soup. I’d like to thank all of you for your support for Stone Soup while I was its leader and I’d like to thank all of you for the support you will give to Emma as she moves the magazine into its 50th year, and beyond. And, to you, Emma, words cannot express the depth of my thanks to you, and my admiration for your work at Stone Soup. Thank you, as I enter the last decades of my life, for breathing new life into this dream of nineteen-year-old me. Thank you for keeping this candle for creative young writers and artists alight. All my best for the new year, From Stone Soup December 2022… The Little Christmas Tree By Celia Chen, 10 Once upon a peaceful time, there was a little Christmas tree. He wasn’t that much different from the other fir trees on the little mountainside. Day by
Flash Contest #50, December 2022: Use the atlas of emotions to choose an emotion you’ve never heard of and write a story/poem in which your protagonist feels that emotion—our winners and their work
Our December Flash Contest was based on Prompt #231 (provided by Stone Soup contributor Molly Torinus), which asked that participants use the Atlas of Emotions in order to research an emotion they had or hadn’t heard of before, and to write a story or poem in which the protagonist experienced that emotion. As has always been the case, there was quite a variety of submissions, with pieces ranging from a hybrid story/poem told in a flashback to a story inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks to a poem written from the perspective of a formerly enslaved person. Since this was the last flash contest of 2022, we encourage everyone to reread the work of past winners via this link, and we hope you’ll continue submitting your wonderful work next year! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “Flashback” by Kimberly Hu, 10 “Resignation” by Nova Macknik-Conde, 11 “Grief” by Vanaja Raju, 11 “Nighthawks” by Chloe Ruan, 13 “Blue” by Emily Tang, 13 Honorable Mentions “Tranquility” by Mordecai Abraham, 9 “Her Argumentativness” by Chen Ziyi Claire, 11 “My Abhorrence” by Zoe Hufnagel, 12 “Survival” by Bela Harini Ramesh, 11 “The Spelling Bee” by Ariel Zhang, 10 Flashback Kimberly Hu, 10 They started when she left. In other words, when I was abandoned. They just came. Came at the most random times ever. Came whenever they wanted. I didn’t control anything. I never controlled anything. It just happened. Life just happened. I didn’t have anything now. Not a mother, not a father, not even an annoying sibling. Or a pet. When she left, I should have felt a mixture of anger, sadness, disgust. But I felt calm. Almost satisfied. But it would always be “almost”. I just watched as she walked away in the swift, pounding rain, ignoring the puddles of water forming near her feet, stepping over the dandelion in the crack in the sidewalk. I watched like that for a long while, my gaze never straying away or leaving its spot where she had disappeared. The rain never did, either. It beat to the rhythm of my heart. Whether that was fast or slow, I really didn’t know. It was my sole companion for the rest of that day, until it turned dark. Since then, I lived alone. But the flashback that came next, months later, wasn’t a memory. It was a hiking trail through the most painful remembrances of my brain. I remembered When her footsteps Receded away She was gone. Away and away Never to be seen Or heard Or touched Again. I remembered When he was taken away And never came back And didn’t leave a trace of him In this world. I remembered The embrace Of my young, Gone brother. I remembered When I became A ghost In my ghost house Left alone forgotten. I remembered How she twisted The lavender blue Ring Twirled around Her finger How she ran that finger Through her hair When she was nervous. I remembered His laugh And his merry smile Never to be taken away Until it was. I remembered When my brother Never came back. I remembered The times When I wasn’t alone With someone to love Who loved me. I remembered When I had a mother And a father And the one moment When I had a brother. But in one Other moment They were gone. Each With a moment Of their own. My mother The last. The sound of rain echoed in my ears as I woke to the world. Silent, invisible tears streamed down my face and flooded my ghost house. My mind felt blurry. Then I was suddenly energized by a surge of fury. But it only lasted for a moment, and seeped down to my bowl of emotion at the darkest and deepest part of my heart, swirling around with my deep sadness and regret and, strangely, a tinge of fear. Dark colors drifted around in my bowl, unforgiving and clouding my judgment. It dawned on me how long it had been since I had last spoken–spoken a conversation, spoken with energy and/or excitement. I had spent so long trapped in my little ghost house, my feelings and memories violently building inside. Abruptly I was overwhelmed by my overflowing bowl. First the fists of fury, then tears of regret and self-blame, then the angriness again, telling myself I was the victim, not the antagonist. Then came that strange sprinkle of fear and finally my heart slowed and so did my mind, so much that I couldn’t feel my heartbeat anymore. I felt as if time had paused. As if everything had suddenly stopped–the hovering rain in the dark air, the sagging dandelion in the crack of the sidewalk, the memories sticking to the moment. Then I crawled over to the window and saw rain, rain just like the day she had left. But this rain was lighter. Brighter. It promised the outcome of a faint rainbow as the carefully weaved blanket of clouds began to tear apart lightly, unveiling the sky. It was that moment when I vowed to myself that someday I would find a way out of the ghost house and see the world. Maybe my bowl of emotion would somehow grow lighter. Brighter. Resignation Nova Macknik-Conde, 11 I look upon these cruel, yet kind,Murderous, yet caring,Dejected, blissful humans,That made me, an AI,The best and the greatest,(Or so I’m told),Since my creation 10 years ago,In 2079. Everyday I question what it is likeFor one of those odd creaturesTo have the luxury of love,The curse of pain,To grieve, to mourn,To laugh, to enjoyTo feel anything at all, I am trapped in a sentient,Impassive prison,That is nothing but myself,Where I live but do not love,Never lonely, just alone. I have nothing to fearAnd nothing to live for,Until the day I am updated,And understand how to partakeIn strange passions. But for now, I sit
Saturday Newsletter: December 17, 2022
Snow Stream (iPhone 8) by Kaeden Kobayashi, 10; published in Stone Soup December 2022 A note from Emma Wood Every year, I like to spend the second half of December reflecting on the previous year. I ask questions like, Whom do I wish I’d spent more time with? What do I wish I’d spent more time working on? Am I doing anything that no longer “sparks joy”? This year, I am also reflecting on Stone Soup: What projects did we complete this year? Where is there still room for improvement? What are our goals for 2023? In 2022, we read through 1600 submissions, published eleven issues of the magazine, and produced three books. We continue to offer our writing classes as well as our summer workshop series. We created a shiny new Amazon storefront and redesigned our homepage as well as our magazine landing pages. We built a new educator portal with free curricular materials from the ground up. We hired three (incredible!) new employees to replace outgoing, long-term Stone Soup team members, and in doing so, we were able to refine and clarify their positions going forward. It was a big year for us. I felt proud as I compiled that list. However, we are ending this year in a place of greater instability than ever before: our financial forecasts for 2023 show us running a deficit of several thousand dollars. It costs us about $8000 to produce each issue of Stone Soup. Creating a book costs anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000. This is the core business of Stone Soup: elevating young voices, creating authors—in every sense of the word. And yet it may soon be unsustainable for us. As we enter our fiftieth year of production, we have plans in place to hit the ground running: applying for grants and building our donor base to include companies and larger funds. But in order to survive long enough to implement these plans, we need your help right now. Will you donate today to help ensure Stone Soup’s survival for the next generation of young creators? Remember: when you give to Stone Soup, you are giving to a young writer or artist. You are giving them the gift of publishing their work. Of feeling heard. Of being seen. The gift of being told, Yes, you matter. So—why not? Why not send us the equivalent of what you’d spend on a cup of coffee or a small gift for a friend’s child? Or if you’re able to this season, why not give us the equivalent of what you’d spend on a big Christmas gift for your own child? After all, Stone Soup is a gift to so many. And for us every dollar truly counts. Gratefully yours, New year, new term! We are happy to announce the continuation of our virtual classes for the Winter 2023 term beginning January 21st, 2023! They will run weekly through March 25th. We are additionally thrilled to once again present Isidore Bethel’s filmmaking workshop and are incredibly grateful for his continued partnership with Stone Soup. Also on offer is Conner’s popular writing workshop! For the year of 2023, we plan to alternate Conner’s and William’s workshops to consolidate and boost enrollment. If you were looking forward to William’s class, check back in the spring and try out a course with Conner or Isidore in the meantime! Introduction to Short-Form Filmmaking with Isidore Bethel, meets at 9 a.m. Pacific Time every Saturday. Isidore is an award-winning filmmaker who will guide students through the process of making their own film. Discussing and writing about other filmmakers and their work will complement the students’ own filmmaking journeys. Sign up here for Short-Form Filmmaking. Conner’s Group: At 11 a.m. Pacific Time every week, Conner Basset will teach his writing workshop focusing on the nuts-and-bolts of writing. Conner teaches English at Albright College and has experience instructing younger writers. He is a poet and translator in addition to being a brilliant teacher. Sign up here for Conner’s workshop. From Stone Soup December 2022… 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.
