Girl with Daisies By Jane Wheeler, 13 (Boxford, MA), published in the Stone Soup Blog March, 2022 A note from Caleb Happy Saturday! I’d like to begin by congratulating Abhi Sukhdial—Stone Soup contributor and winner of our 2019 Book Contest—whose novella Three Days Till EOC was recognized by the 2021-2022 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in the novel writing category. As per the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, “This year the Scholastic Awards received nearly 260,000 entries nationally; 20,000 entries were from the Remote Programs alone! In the Remote Programs, only 9 percent of all works received a Silver Key. And only 12 percent of all works submitted to our Remote Programs received an Honorable Mention. Receiving a Silver Key or Honorable Mention is an incredible achievement.” Weekly Writing Workshops There are two of (William Rubel’s) and three of (Conner Bassett’s) classes left in the Winter session. The Spring program begins after Easter. If you would like a free trial in one of the remaining classes this session, please send an email to tayleigh@stonesoup.com. Below, you can find a video of one our students—Zar, 11—delivering an incredible reading during the February 12th Workshop on Parables & Paradoxes. Summer School Registration On top of the inimitable Naomi Kinsman’s Design a Novel weekend workshop, which takes place Saturday March 26 and Sunday March 27 from 1-4 pm eastern time, you can now begin registering for the Young Author’s Studio Summer Camps offered by the Society of Young Inklings! A few members of the Stone Soup team—Book Club Facilitator Maya Mahony, Refugee Project Coordinator Laura Moran, and myself—are all offering classes. Maya’s class on Identity and Imagination takes place July 25-28 at 1-3 pm pacific time, Laura’s class on the Anthropology of the Everyday on June 13-16 at 9 am pacific, and my class on Literature in Miniature on June 27-30 at 9 am pacific. More classes will go live as we get closer to summer, so make sure to look out for updates! This week, I’d once again like to direct your attention to the Stone Soup blog, though this time my focus is on our fabulous COVID blog that we began way back in 2020. The purpose of this blog is twofold; it’s primary purpose is to allow children to filter their complex feelings about the pandemic through art, but it also acts as a sort of ongoing time capsule with which to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jane Wheeler, 13, writes of her beautiful piece Girl with Daisies, “We have all used different styles of face masks throughout covid to keep ourselves and others safe. This art represents the way we can find beauty even when covering up part of ourselves.” And Graham, 12, writes of his stunning poem “Life in the Time of COVID-19,” “Because of my mom’s job, I was living in Peru when COVID-19 started. The country locked down because of COVID. I couldn’t leave my apartment for forty-eight days. It was really hard. Things deteriorated in Peru and we had to be evacuated back to the United States. I returned home to Montana where there was no lockdown and I could finally go for a walk and be outside. My poem tells this story in half acrostic form and half free verse to help show the isolation and then freedom.” Both Jane and Graham turned to art in order to represent their unique perspectives, and in completely different forms. This weekend, I’d like you to think deeply about the pandemic and how it is affecting you most in its current form. Then, think about how you might capture this unique moment in time through your art. Like Graham altered the form of his poem in order to express the nature of its content, try and come up with an art form that mirrors your feelings about COVID. For example, if your experience with the pandemic is too difficult to express in the second dimension, create a sculpture or some other form of three-dimensional art. Be creative, think outside the box, and if you like what you write, please submit it to the COVID blog for consideration. Until next time, Contest News Fourth Annual Book Contest Every year we recognize the top novel or poetry collection submitted to this contest. The first prize is for your book to be published by Stone Soup. Books by previous winners like Abhi Sukhdial, Tristan Hui, and Anya Geist, have garnered important national recognition. The deadline is Sunday, August 21, 2022 at midnight in your time zone. There is a $15 filing fee. The winning book will be published in September, 2023. To submit to this contest, please visit our Submittable page. From the Stone Soup Blog March 2022 Life in the Time of COVID-19 By Graham Kosnar, 12 (Billings, MT) I t started—the disease that just kept coming S taying in Peruvian lockdown O ften complaining about Zoom meetings L osing our minds A t home day and night T rees and parks are bare I t drove everyone into despair O bjects became our closest friends N obody outside walking, walking, walking, Walking in Montana Trekking through Yellowstone The sky is blue Trees sway. I smell wild sage and mint. I can follow Whatever trail I want Passing birch trees Traversing hills Hiking D o w n Into valleys Entering a stream, The water, cold on my feet Feels good. I am home. I am finally free. Click here to read more from the COVID blog 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
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Saturday Newsletter: March 5, 2022
Wounded Soul, by Arina, 14 (Iraq). Arina is in Athens with her mother, sister and brother. She loves to paint, read, swim, learn languages and go to the beach. Her art is currently up in an exhibition in Athens. She’s painted dozens of paintings and her story has brought awareness to hundreds of people around the world on 4 continents. This piece was created as part of Love Without Borders, a non-profit organization for refugees living in camps and shelters in Greece, and published through the Stone Soup Refugee Project. A note from Stone Soup Founder William Rubel Dear Friends — Well, it is again that millions of people are streaming out of cities where bombs and artillery pound people’s homes. The costumes change. The language of pain, tears, and flight does not. Here is a link to the group, Save the Children. Annual Book Contest – August 21 Deadline. It is early March, and so it is that time again—the time to announce the opening of our Fourth Annual Stone Soup Book Contest. Every year we recognize the top novel or poetry collection submitted to this contest. The first prize is for your book to be published by Stone Soup. Books by previous winners like Abhi Sukhdial, Tristan Hui, and Anya Geist, have garnered important national recognition. The deadline is Sunday, August 21, 2022 at midnight in your time zone. There is a $15 filing fee. The winning book will be published in September, 2023. Writing a book is not an easy task. I know that some of you are already working towards this contest goal, including a few of you continuing work on a text you submitted to the contest in 2022. With school and life in full swing, we know that it is going to take an extra degree of organization and discipline to get a manuscript ready to submit by the deadline roughly six months from now. As a writer myself, I can tell you that I am all too aware of the key problem with being a writer: writing does not write itself! We, the writers, can only get our work completed by sitting down at a desk and typing. Stone Soup has your back. The fabulous Naomi Kinsman, founding director of the Society of Young Inklings, a brilliant writing program for young authors, is leading a weekend workshop—Saturday and Sunday March 26 & 27, 10-1 Pacific/ 1-4 Eastern—on how to set yourself up for success as a novel writer. The workshop costs $200. However, if you cannot afford the class, then please write to Tayleigh@stonesoup.com. We want any student interested in starting a novel to be able to attend this workshop. In addition to this one-time weekend workshop, I will be holding a monthly meeting on the last Saturday of every month from March through July via Zoom at 9am Pacific for anyone who wants to meet to discuss their project with me, and to share with other writers. (For the record, I am not involved with judging the contest and do not speak with the judges about authors or manuscripts.) I am not a novelist. But, I am a working writer. I am on my third book. So I can help you with focus issues and the meeting lets you share directly with your writing colleagues. Here are the books of the past winners: Three Days Till EOC, Searching for Bows and Arrows, The Golden Elephant, The Other Realm, and Born on the First of Two. Last year’s winners—Remember the Flowers and Foxtale—are forthcoming and will be published later this year. I’d like to close this contest announcement with a general statement about contests. The primary reason to enter this contest is to provide a deadline to aim for with a project that will stretch your abilities as writers. Every novel stretches the author. First novels are especially challenging. Challenges are good. Challenging yourself is key to becoming a great writer. Every contest has an element of chance about it. Don’t write for the judge. Write to make yourself happy. That way, whether you win the contest or not, you will have created a winning manuscript. Weekend writing project. Today, I am sharing with you one project that I will be teaching as part of my writing class this Saturday morning. The writing project today is something that any of you can do whatever your age—12, 21, or, like me, approaching 70. This project is about the sound of words, and how sounds can carry feelings, even when the words aren’t real words. The trick for all writers is to say what you mean and mean what you say. But literary writers, like Stone Soup writers, have an extra task. That is to use language in expressive ways—even sometimes to use language that has some of the qualities of music. Even I will sometimes think of the past as being, well, simpler, less complex, and less daring than we are today. This is not how to think of the past! One hundred years ago there were many artists doing totally crazy things. Truly crazy things. Like, writing poems with words that don’t mean anything! Words invented for their sounds—for how the sounds make us feel—kind of like how composers choose sounds. The 1916 poem by Hugo Ball that is read in the video, below, is made up of “pseudowords.” Pretend words. The only real limit to creating pseudo words is that you create words that are easily pronounceable, slamdoodle vs. gholtzhtzlp. Please watch the poem in the video, and then, sometime this weekend, find a place and time when you can sit quietly and go into yourself to find the word sounds that will express your feelings, or the feelings of a character you may be writing about. If you are a writer, then think of this as an exercise to help you become more alert to the connection between how the sound of your story (or poem) might affect your readers. I also think that you might find that there will be a place in a story that
Saturday Newsletter: February 26, 2022
Golden Sunset (Acrylic) By Delilah Prager, 10 (Santa Monica, CA), published in the February 2022 issue of Stone Soup A note from Sarah Hello all! After working at Stone Soup since 2017, I am leaving for a full-time position as an archivist. In this last newsletter, I’d like to express my appreciation for all of the wonderful young writers, artists, and readers I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the years. I have consistently been amazed by how thoughtful, considerate, and talented you all are, and it makes me so hopeful for the future. For my last weekend project, I want to invite you to be inspired by Ava Espinoza’s lovely poem “The Word,” published in this month’s issue and also available if you scroll down to the end of the email. In her poem, Ava dances around an unspecified word that seems to follow her around, never giving her any peace. Do you have something in your life that strikes fear into you like the “word” in this poem? Maybe it’s not a word, maybe it’s a phrase or an event. For this exercise, I want you to try to a similar technique to Ava’s—hinting at but never directly addressing a word or subject. It can be serious, but also feel free to make it lighthearted. How can you describe something without ever truly introducing it? What do you want to convey to your readers about this unnamed concept and how do your characters feel about it? If you’ve felt inspired by this prompt and like the work you’ve created, please consider submitting it. Again, thank you all for being so wonderful during my time at Stone Soup. I can’t wait to see the things that Stone Soup contributors will go on to do, and I hope to read your work for years to come. All my best, From Stone Soup February 2022 The Word By Ava Espinoza, 12 (Palo Alto, CA) I look through boxes for things I want to keep, taking out those I need, leaving in those I don’t Need or want. Then suddenly I see, At the bottom of the box, A word. It’s a scary word, a horrible word, A terrifying word. I don’t want that word. I don’t see why I’d ever want that word. I close the box, but on the floor in front Of me, there I see The word. It creeps closer. I start to run. Imagine! This disgusting word chasing me Away from the box, out of the room, Into the hallway. I look behind, and there, Still chasing me is The word. …/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.
