About

Dream Bedroom (colored pencil) by Rohan Jayakrishnan, 12 (Downingtown, PA) and published in the April 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Jane We are absolutely thrilled to announce that the winner of our 2019 Book Contest, Three Days till EOC: a Novella by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, has been named the sole Honor Award Winner for the 2021 Green Earth Book Award in the Young Adult Fiction category! Congratulations, Abhi. We are so, so proud of you. It’s an exceptional achievement for any author to win an award for their book—even more so when it is your first one! But Abhi’s achievement is greater still. There were 74 books in the competition, and 73 of them were written by adults. This absolutely sums up what Stone Soup is all about. We know that young people’s creative abilities are extraordinary and often far exceed those of adults. We see this every week in our writing workshops, in the comments and discussions that take place in our book club, and as we read the submissions to the Stone Soup magazine and blog. All our Stone Soup authors can celebrate and take encouragement from the silver glow of this badge of honor, awarded by an independent panel of distinguished judges who were expecting to read works only by adult authors. Well done, Abhi, and thank you for trusting us with your work. It goes without saying that if you haven’t read Abhi’s book yet—you should! You can buy it in hardcover and ebook versions in the Stone Soup online bookstore, and all booksellers. This week’s featured story is a classic redemption tale. Tom Green, a horrible, spoiled, lazy young man loses all his money and privilege, and through a series of misfortunes and hard work over several years becomes a better person. In the end, he finds happiness not in the material things that were all he cared about in the beginning but in a simpler, more compassionate life spent helping others. What makes this story extra special is the writer’s style: Zahra Batteh tells the story of Tom in a natural, almost conversational voice, but without wasting a word. Every short sentence moves the action forward and paints a picture of Tom’s life and character. In just four pages, Zahra manages to make the reader feel as though they know everything about Tom and how he has spent four whole years of his life. I think she achieves this feat partly though the spareness of her language. She doesn’t hint, or judge, or indulge in long, flowery descriptions; she lays out the facts plainly and simply, showing us who Tom was and who he becomes without ever telling us what she thinks he is like. It’s a great example of the power of “show, don’t tell.” This weekend, read the tale of “Tom Green.” Invent your own flawed character and think about what might lead them to redemption. Then, try to write their story as simply as you can. Show us, don’t tell us, who your main character is. As always, if you love what you’ve written, share it with us. And, before I go, it has to be said just one more time: yea Abhi!! Until next week, Writing Classes and Book Club Are you looking for classes to inspire, improve, and practice your writing with great teachers and a group of like-minded young writers and readers? Join us! We do charge fees for our clubs and workshops, but we try to keep them as low as possible, and we offer discounts to subscribers and scholarships to students who need them. Contact us at education@stonesoup.com with any questions. Writing Workshop: we have two new writing groups for spring/summer, starting April 17, that will meet via Zoom every Saturday except for the last Saturday of the month. Come write with us and share your work with your peers. Find out more and register for a workshop at Eventbrite. To see some of the great work produced by current workshop members, read contributions published at Stonesoup.com, or join us at one of our free public readings! Book Club: a book club for writers that meets via Zoom on the last Saturday of every month, with a new season starting on April 24! Find out more and register for book club at Eventbrite. Check out which books we are reading on our website. Young Author’s Studio Summer Camps: we are offering a wide range of classes through the summer jointly with the Society of Young Inklings. Each camp runs for two hours per day, Monday through Thursday. All details and bookings via Society of Young Inklings. Book Contest 2021 For information on submitting to the Stone Soup Book Contest 2021, please click here. To submit your manuscript, please visit our submittable site. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Young Blogger Gia Porwal published a riveting travelogue of her family trip through Saudi Arabia! Lila, 11, wrote an observational poem, “Spring in Central Park,” as part of our April Flash Contest. Arjun, 9, wrote a poem, “Life Inside a Staircase,” as part of our March Flash Contest. A writeup of the Winter/Spring Writing Workshop Showcase is on the website. Check it out for information on who read and links to their terrific work. From Stone Soup April 2021 Tom Green By Zahra Batteh, 10 (Washington, DC) Illustrated with Dream Bedroom by Rohan Jayakrishnan, 12 (Downingtown, PA) Tom Green was very proud to say that he had the best life any human could wish for. He would wake up in his cushiony white bed and then head down his marble staircase, where a delicious breakfast was waiting for him, prepared earlier that morning by his personal chef. If he were to have something involving chocolate, the chocolate would be from Switzerland, where, he believed, the best chocolate came from. If he were to eat something involving berries, the berries would have been freshly picked that morning. Everything had to taste amazing in Tom’s house. If there was ever something that didn’t meet his taste buds’ expectations,

“Entrapped” (colored pencil), by Andralyn Yao, 12 (West Lafayette, IN), and published in the April 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William First quarterly reading by Stone Soup authors! Tomorrow, Sunday, April 18, at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern). Public readings of poetry and prose are a standard part of the life of established authors. Please come to listen to fabulous fiction and poetry—and to show support for our authors. We estimate the program will last around thirty to forty minutes. I want it to be simple for you to attend, so you can also click on the direct Zoom link here. Writing Prompt Reminder: Writing prompts are sent out every Monday along with news on the monthly flash fiction contest. If you are not on the list, sign up at this link. The past 147 prompts are on our website. You will also find them from the link. If you are a teacher, use them in your classroom. Spring Writing Workshop: The Spring Writing Workshop sessions started today. We now have two classes, one that I teach and one being taught by Conner Bassett. There are a few places in each of the classes. If you want to try out a class to see whether you like it, then please contact tayleigh@stonesoup.com. She will get you the link for next week. Summer classes: Summer school enrollment for the joint Stone Soup–Society for Young Inklings Summer Writing Program is open. The novel workshop is full. A second novel workshop has just been started. Poetry class: Emma Wood, our Stone Soup editor, is a working poet. She is teaching a poetry class in the summer program. It is the first class she has taught through Stone Soup. If you are a poet, then jump on this class while it is still open. If you have a friend who is also writing poetry, tell them about the class and you can take it together. Stone Soup Refugee Project: I have not written about the Stone Soup Refugee project for some time. This is the project we started inspired by former Stone Soup writer and blogger Sabrina Guo. For the last nearly six months, we have been building out a part of our website for the creative work of refugee students. The site is finally finished! It is currently being reviewed by our contact at the United National High Commission on Refugees. When they approve it, we will share it with you—and then take a deep breath—to move the project into its next phase. Reading and writing project: The Cookie Jar, the opening of which is below, is an astonishingly original and powerful piece of fiction. If you are an adult reader of this newsletter, and if you read novels for pleasure, then please read the story. This is not “student” writing. This is writing. Full stop! Isabella Chapman offers us a brilliant portrait of a character who has formed an attachment to a cookie jar. As improbable as this sounds, Isabella pulls it off. We feel along with the Elsie, the main character, and we feel for those around her. There is so much to say about this work! The character is fully imagined, as are the places where the story unfolds. Super realistic and evocative description of the beach scene, for example. A strikingly large and carefully chosen vocabulary. As you read the story, I’d like you to pay attention to place—the where the story is taking place. Also, pay attention to how carefully Isabella has worked out the story’s emotional logic—like explaining why Elsie kept the cookie jar in the duffel bag. For this weekend’s project, I want you to create a character who has an unusual interest, obsession, or focus. A character who does things differently. A great story, like this one, explores a theme—in this case, explores this child’s unusual obsession—by letting us experience it. Isabella doesn’t write, “Here is this eccentric character.” Instead, she brings us into Elsie’s world so that we see through Elsie’s eyes and Elsie’s feelings. For inspiration, perhaps there is someone you know who has an eccentric interest or an eccentric attachment to something, like Elsie and her cookie jar. Or just someone—or, as this is fiction, it could be an animal—who acts differently from others. Write your piece from the point of view of the eccentric character so that for them, the behavior is normal. Good luck! If you super like what you create, then please send it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider it for publication in the magazine. Until next week, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest Winners! Our April Flash Contest was based on our weekly creativity prompt #147 written by Stone Soup ’20–21 Intern Sage Millen. Her prompt, which asked participants to visit the same spot every day for a week and record what they saw—whether through art, photography, or writing—generated a wide array of fabulous submissions, from daily photographic representation of a lounging house cat to ultra-scientific observation notes reminiscent of natural science journals. Thank you to all who submitted their stunning work, and thanks again to Sage for providing us with the prompt! Congratulations to our winners and honorable mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “The Tales of Freeman Gardens” by Claire Liotta, 12 (Glen Ridge, NJ) “Dolly’s Home” by Elizabeth Sabaev, 10 (Forest Hills, NY) “Observing My Backyard” by Rishan Chakraborty, 11 (Portland, OR) “The Island” by Madeline Cleveland, 11 (Belleville, WI) “Over the Ditch” by Daniel Shorten, 10 Honorable Mentions “Magnolia Bliss” by Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11 (Newark, OH) “My Backyard” by Reena Bao, 11 (Bedford, MA) “Times of the Day in My Room” by Chelsea Liang, 11 (San Jose, CA) “My Description Paragraphs for Six Days” by Diya Chakrabarti, (Portland, OR) “Our Playground” by Tang Li, 8 (Palmetto Bay, FL) “Interesting” by Ava Shorten, 11 Selected for the Stone Soup COVID-19 Blog “My School” by Feifei Wan, 9 (Portland, OR) Selected for the Stone Soup Blog “Spring in Central Park” by Lila Laton (New York, NY) Writing Classes and Book