A note from Sage Summer School News: Registration is open! And, the age ranges for Emma’s (poetry, memoir, and story writing), Conner’s (playwriting) and Jane’s (creative food writing) classes have all been lowered from 11–14 to 9–14. You can register for these classes and more here. Hello, readers of Stone Soup! I’m Sage, a current Stone Soup intern, and I am writing today to remind you that Stone Soup publishes original musical compositions on its blog, and to encourage you—whether or not you have experience composing—to consider trying to make and record your own song. When I was nine, I decided to write a group of songs as a present for my cousin’s birthday. I had composed little pieces here and there before, but this was probably the first time I had actually set out to create my own music. It was an amazing experience! I assembled a group of family and friends: my brother, his violin teacher, and my mom’s cousin. They played various instruments while I played the piano and sang. I loved being able to “conduct”—directing everyone when and what to play. Even though composing music can seem intimidating, I encourage all of you to try! And if it’s possible, I would highly recommend collaborating with other people when you compose music. It’s so much fun, and there are so many more options and possibilities for your songs. A few things to keep in mind as you sit down to compose: Songs don’t have to have lyrics to convey messages or tell stories. In fact, sometimes purely instrumental songs give a sense of emotion better than words ever could. The theme music in movies is often wordless, and yet it can evoke fear, glory, sadness, and many other feelings. For instance, the theme song to the movie Jaws totally makes listeners on edge and fearful. The music sets the scene for a villain to appear and pounce on the protagonist—a kind of foreshadowing without any writing involved! When you’re composing music, try to think about the goal of your song. What do you want your listeners to take away from it? Do you want to write an eye-opening song or just a fun, danceable tune? Of course, sometimes you just want to mess around with notes and melodies—and that’s perfectly fine too, especially if you’re new to this! But if you’re really trying to impact somebody with your song, keep your ultimate goal in the back of your mind. If you want to compose a piece but don’t know where to begin, something I find really helpful is a theme. For example, when I was writing the songs for my cousin, I had to write them about topics she would find interesting, such as herself and our family. Her birthday also served as a deadline to keep me motivated. Finally, COVID-19 has limited us in many ways, but it has also made us more aware of ways to virtually connect. This is a great time to compose music with a friend who lives somewhere distant! If you’re a writer, team up with somebody who plays an instrument—you could write lyrics, and they could write the melody! Again, collaborating on compositions is such a fun way to socialize. There are so many different types and styles of music; I truly believe there is something for everyone. Hopefully, you feel inspired to start or continue creating your own music and share it with the world. And remember, if you like what you create, we encourage you to submit your work to the Stone Soup Blog. Have fun composing! 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 Leah Musak wrote a stunning poem, “Broken America Must Rise.” Young Blogger Madeline Cleveland reviewed Ivan Doig’s 2006 historical fiction novel, The Whistling Season. Young Blogger Dylan Scrivener wrote a beautiful story composed mostly of dialogue, “Tig and Lomster.” Aditi, 12, wrote a poem about hope for a new beginning. Tarin, 13, drew a beautiful depiction of COVID’s impact.Writing classes and Book Club 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 writing groups for spring/summer that meet via Zoom every Saturday except for William’s class that does not meet 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. 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. From Stone Soup November 2020 The Mental Mind Music By Eli Nimchonok, 6 (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) The mind is birthed in the day but in the night it is silent Every day the mind has a memory and removes the math When the mind music comes you hum. Read work from our current issue. 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.
About
Saturday Newsletter: March 15, 2021
“Girl in the Sun” (Canon PowerShot SX600) photographed by Sage Millen, 13, (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and published in the May 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Emma As many of you regular readers may know, in addition to being editor of Stone Soup, I have also been a PhD student in literature. Well, now I can officially say I am a PhD candidate in literature! What is the distinction? For the first few years of my PhD, I had to complete a certain number of courses in the department. Then I had to prepare for my “Qualifying Exam”—for my department, this was a three-hour oral exam based on a portfolio of written materials that totaled nearly 100 pages! Before I passed the exam, I was a PhD student—but now I have passed it, I have “advanced to candidacy”; I am a PhD candidate, and “all” I have left to do is write my dissertation. I thought I would feel happiness and relief once the exam was over. I would no longer have the added stress and work on top of the regular stress and work of my regular life! However, still only a few days out from the exam, I feel deflated, disappointed, empty. This feeling reminds me of the way I feel whenever I finish writing a book manuscript. The whole time I am working on the book, I fantasize about finishing it—of having written the book so no longer have to be writing it. But then once I am finished, I am flooded with a feeling of sadness. What will I do now? What will force me to think deeply and thoroughly through ideas in language? What will I work on? This feeling is the best reminder there is that process is everything. Writing and making art can be difficult, but it is in the process where we find joy and meaning. Writing is about writing, not about having written. As Jorie Graham, a famous contemporary poet (and my former teacher!), once said to me, “Your last piece is never going to write the next one for you.” So, whether you are working on a manuscript to submit to our book contest or an artwork or shorter piece of writing to submit to the magazine or blog, I encourage you to remind yourself, whenever you find yourself wishing you were done already, that actually you will miss the project when you are actually done. Until next week, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest Winners! Our May Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #151, provided by the brilliant Molly Torinus, challenging participants to come up with five “terrible” book titles and write a story based on one of them. What followed was an avalanche of submissions boasting the most creative, eye-catching titles many of us had ever seen. Of course, the exemplary work that followed the titles broke the moniker of “terrible,” and provided us with a lifetime supply of imagination, no one story following a similar arc. We found ourselves immersed in dramas set in the far reaches of outer space, character driven vignettes set in a classroom, rich narratives told from the perspective of a dog, and much, much more. A big thank you to all who submitted this month—it was a pleasure to read all of your work. In particular, we congratulate 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 BWBM Students” by Ritobroto Roy Chowdhury, 10, (Riverside, CA) “T.L.G.E.Y.5.T.” by Darren Fisher, 9, (Portland, OR) “Connecticutians, I Ate the Grape” by Rex Huang, 11, (Lake Oswego, OR) “The Book Without a Name” by Serena Lin, 10, (Scarsdale, NY) “The Pheasant Was Delicious” by Juliet D. Simon, 11, (Santa Monica, CA) Honorable Mentions “Once Upon a Time a Friendship” by Sophia Wong, 9, (Short Hills, NJ) “Chocotalia and Hideous Dragon Monster” by Sophie Liu, 9, (Surrey, BC) “When a Chicken Says ‘SQUAWK!'” by Olivia Luan, 11, (Great Falls, VA) “Cats, Dogs, Dragons, and Other Household Pets” by Atalie Lyda, 12, (Portland, OR) “You Are NOT Reading This Book Cover” by Joycelyn Zhang, 11, (San Diego, CA) 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 Daniel Zhu published an informative article on the stock market. Read updates on both of the Writing Workshops from Saturday, May 1: Writing Workshop #39: Ghosts (part 1), and How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #3: Lightness. As part of AAPI Heritage month, Young Blogger Tang Li wrote a personal narrative describing her
Saturday Newsletter: May 8, 2021
“Perspective (Pencil) by Grace Williams, 12 (Katonah, NY), and published in the May 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Sarah Feedback Survey Have you participated in a writing workshop? We’re asking former participants and those who may be interested in attending a workshop in the future to fill out a feedback form, available here, so we can see what has and hasn’t been working. We really appreciate you taking the time to let us know what you think. Weekend Project Did you know that Stone Soup has published a ton of food writing over the years? William and Jane are both experts on food writing, and Jane is even offering a summer camp later this year on the subject! Rubina Davila’s personal narrative from this month’s issue, “The Bakery,” (excerpted below) has elements of food writing woven in, with the descriptions of the pan dulce and soda she buys at an East LA bakery. I particularly like how Rubina includes so many sensory descriptions into her story. These details, like how “the pots and pans clanked loudly” and “the lights shone brightly on the sweet breads,” paint a picture for the reader that allows them to imagine that they too are inside this bakery with Rubina. But more than just describe a scene filled with delicious food, Rubina also ties it all back to her family. She wonders what it was like for her family members who lived in the same neighborhood decades before. So much can change in a neighborhood in a few generations, but how can food tie us all together? My challenge for you this weekend is to write a story about food and family. Rubina’s story “The Bakery” offers a great model to use as inspiration, but feel free to branch off and experiment. Maybe there’s a specific family recipe that you want to write about. Or maybe you want to take a more research-oriented approach, in the vein of Ezra Bernhardt’s blog posts from a year ago, when he dug into the history of foods like pasta and cured meats. There’s so many angles you could choose to approach food! Whichever way you choose to think about it, we encourage you to submit the work you produce to Stone Soup for consideration either in the magazine or on the blog. 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! As part of AAPI Heritage month, Young Blogger Priscilla Chow wrote a personal narrative surrounding her creation of a Chinese lantern for the Chinese Lantern Festival. Young Blogger Daniel Chu wrote a compelling essay on the prejudices faced by women in science. Blogger Sita Welt took the initiative to interview author Kate Milford about her newest book, The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book. A transcript of their interview can be found here. From Stone Soup May 2021 The Bakery By Rubina Davila, 13 (Sierra Madre, CA) (Illustrated by Grace Williams, 12 (Katonah, NY)) When I walked into the bakery on Cesar Chavez Avenue in East Los Angeles, my lungs were instantly flooded with the sweet air of butter and sugar wafting from the kitchen while pots and pans clanked and banged loudly and voices called out in Spanish. My mouth watered as my eyes scanned the many kinds of pan dulce displayed in neat rows. The lights shone brightly on the sweet breads. I could feel the heat from the pot of homemade tamales, and I craved one of the Mexican sodas in the glass fridge. I clutched my $5 bill, knowing I could walk out with a large bag of pan dulce for my family and a soda for myself and still have change. I ordered three kinds of pan dulce: elote, concha, and a large cuerno, named for their corn, shell, and horn shapes. I reached into the white paper bag of treats, the bottom stained with warm grease. My papa always said, “If the bottom is greasy, you know it’s good.” I bit into the concha, and the familiar sweet smell and ridged texture flooded my senses. The top of the bread crumbled and filled my mouth with its sugary flavor. The center of the bread was especially warm and soft. The smell reminded me of my Aunt Lulu’s kitchen. I wondered what it was like for my father to walk to this bakery at four years old, clinging to the hand of my great-grandfather, Agustín, and to taste the delicious
