“The Fireflies” (Watercolor) by Audrey Champness, 12 (Green Cove Springs, FL),and published in the April 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Jane At last—it’s April, and everyone can share the joy of reading The Trials and Tribulations of Swifty Appledoe by Ariana Kralicek! The first part of Ariana’s novella is published in this month’s issue, and the next two will appear in May and June. It’s funny, it’s thought-provoking, and it’s wise. Everyone involved in the production of Stone Soup magazine has been eagerly anticipating each episode (we have to run a few months ahead, so we have read the whole thing already!), and it’s wonderful that you can all now meet Swifty, Ariana’s delightful and memorable character. Print readers should visit the version on the website too: you can hear a recording of Ariana herself reading it aloud. You can’t beat hearing an author’s work in their own voice! Which reminds me to say, if you are reading this even minutes before 9 a.m. PDT on Saturday, April 3, come and hear our Writing Workshop students give live readings from some of their work from the winter/spring session. It’s free to attend, and everyone is welcome. Join us on Zoom, and then settle back to revel in listening to some great writing. For now, back to Swifty Appledoe. The novella opens with a quote from the poet, playwright, and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854–1900): “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” As you might expect from the quote, the main themes of the novella relate to exactly this—learning to be oneself. In the process of her intense and often hilarious attempts to transform herself into a popular, successful student, our hero Swifty learns to identify and relish her own unique qualities, value herself as she is, and thus find recognition, happiness, and friendship. I feel a lot of warmth and happiness in the gorgeous watercolor featured on this month’s cover too. Audrey Champness’s use of different tones is uplifting: her darker background colors are vibrant and joyful, not somber, and they make the lively focal point of the fireflies flitting around the bright jars just glow. She has captured the scene in a way that makes you think of balmy nights, candlelight or torchlight in the darkness, companionable chatter, and laughter. Both Ariana’s novella and Audrey’s watercolor made me think of this quote by Rumi (1207–1273), which a friend sent to me recently: “A warm, rainy day, this is how it feels when friends get together. Friends refresh friends, just as flowers do, in a spring rain.” What does friendship mean and feel like to you? How might you convey the warm, refreshing sensation of being among friends, understood, valued for yourself, in a lovely season of the year? Spend some time this weekend capturing that mood or feeling in an artwork or a piece of writing. And as always, send us what you produce so Emma can consider it for Stone Soup! Until next time, 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! Read Stone Soup 20-21 Intern Anya Geist’s Book Club write-up for a summary of last week’s Book Club and information on next month’s book. Iris, 11, wrote a review about the lasting relatability of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice Check out the powerful personal narrative “Life Without a Smile” by Margaux for an account of her return to in-person learning. Roger wrote an uplifting flash piece, “COVID-19 in the Ocean.” From Stone Soup April 2021 The Trials and Tribulations of Swifty Appledoe (Part One) By Ariana Kralicek, 12 (Aukland, New Zealand) “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde Chapter 1 “And that’s exactly why you should try Milky’s chocolate ice cream!” I conclude, bowing as my excited audience showers me in a standing ovation. It’s Saturday night, and my parents are sitting on our squishy velvet sofa, watching me rehearse for the big advertisement audition coming up in a month-and-a-half’s time. It’s important that an actress is very prepared because, as they say, the show must go on. The TV is blaring softly behind me, showering me in a spotlight effect and bathing the living room in a cool glow. If I look down, I can see the glassy surface of the coffee table covered in a sea of audition papers, a lone clipboard floating at the surface. You see, when I grow older I want to become a famous actress. I want to go to the Oscars and win incredible awards, go to the Met Gala and wear a spontaneous-but-stunning outfit, pose and give daring looks to the press
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Saturday Newsletter: March 27
“Fist” (acrylic) by Claire Jiang, 12 (Princeton, NJ), and published in the June 2019 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William Stone Soup Friends! It is spring in Santa Cruz. My aviary birds are going crazy making new families! The aviary is already thirty feet (ten meters) long, but the parakeets and zebra finches are making so many nests that I am going to have to expand. The quince tree right outside my window is in full bloom, the lemon and Seville orange trees I see just past the quince are laden with fruit. The Mirabelle plum in my backyard has hundreds of tiny fruits, and the wild onions with their white, bell-shaped flowers are glowing in the afternoon sun. It is spring! Finally! I am now two weeks past my last COVID-19 shot. Perhaps by the end of the year we will be back to something closer to normal. Celebrate and support our great writers by attending these two public readings! We have two public readings coming up. One is a reading for the Saturday Writing Workshop next Saturday, April 3, 9 a.m. Pacific. The other is our first-ever official reading by Stone Soup authors. This is a new quarterly reading event. This first one is scheduled for Sunday, April 18, 10 a.m. Pacific. Registration is via EventBrite. Public readings are an important part of being an author. Please support our authors by attending these events. Thank you. Summer school 2021 Register for our many classes at the joint Stone Soup–Young Inklings Summer 2021 program. This year, for the Stone Soup portion of the program, classes will be taught by Editor Emma Wood, Jane Levi, Laura Moran, and our new writing teacher, Conner Bassett. Read more about him in the section below that introduces our new writing class. Spring Saturday Writing Classes Stone Soup digital or print subscribers receive a substantial discount. No student will be left out of classes because of financial considerations, so please write if you need a scholarship. Private registration only at this time. My class resumes April 10 until summer at its usual 9 a.m. Pacific time. Current students have received a private registration link. I look forward to seeing you all again. Register for our new writing class We are opening a second class Saturdays at 11 a.m. Pacific taught by Conner Bassett, a poet, translator, and creative writing teacher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Conner is a brilliant teacher with extensive teaching experience. He is also Editor Emma Wood’s husband! Enrollment is limited to forty. As with my class, if you need a scholarship, let us know. We don’t want any student who wants to attend kept from the class for financial reasons. Art and Writing Project The amazing painting of a fist by Claire Jiang is a technical tour de force. It is very, very hard to render any object, much less something as complicated as a fist, with such accuracy. I am also impressed with the use of color—naturalistic, but not. And, of course, the fist emerging from black. A shadow. Another dimension. Is it a fist of anger? Should we be afraid of it? Or will the fist open to a hand, asking us to help rescue it from the shadow? What are your ideas? What does this fist imply to you? Try making a drawing, painting, or photograph that, like Clare’s fist, depicts a single object up close. And, like Claire, try to do something that will suggest one or more stories. I like the idea of emerging from darkness—as that always suggest the opposite possibility of falling into darkness. If using photography to make your image, experiment with taking your photographs in low light. You may also want to use a light to highlight the most forward part of the object you are photographing, letting the rest of the object fade into the dark background. If you come up with something cool, please send it to Emma so she can consider it for Stone Soup. Isabel Swain’s remarkable story “Innocent Yet Dire Words” is a true masterpiece. It would be difficult to render its power in just a few words—you would be better off just reading it. But I will say this: the piece interweaves poetry and fiction, long and short sentences, one form emerging from the other in a manner reminiscent of Claire Jiang’s Fist. Along with the form, the story’s content pushes and pulls—one moment you’re laughing and the next you’re in tears. Just as I have encouraged you to consider the multiplicity of meaning held within Claire’s Fist, so too should you look to Isabel’s story as an example of interwoven complexity. Until next week, 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! Last week we had the final writing workshop of the winter/spring session, a workshop on antiheroes led by Stone Soup contributor Madeline Kline, 13. You can find a video of Madeline’s instruction here. Fittingly, Sita, 13, wrote a review on the Gone series by Michael Grant in which she attributes much of the novels’ intrigue to the “villainous antihero.” Stoke the fires of your imagination with Weekly Creativity Prompt #145: Make up a Fictional Government or Country. From Stone Soup June 2019 Innocent Yet Dire Words By Isabel Swain, 12 (Portsmouth, RI) Illustrated by Claire Jiang, 12 (Princeton, NJ) Like the mythical creature, It calls out a sound. Just not a pleasant one; A torture in its own way. Siren. I hold my ears and tell myself to breathe. One, two, three, four . . . 12, 13 . . . 20. This will pass; don’t worry. It’s just a siren. You don’t have to have another Freak Out, Lila. It’s okay, it’s okay. See, it’s leaving? Okay, okay. I open my eyes, slowly uncurl myself from my Freak Out Stance, and take one
Saturday Newsletter: March 20, 2021
“Fly High in the Sky” (watercolor) by Sloka Ganne, 11 (Overland Park, KS) and published in the March 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Emma This weekend we are thrilled to be launching our third annual book contest! Every year we refine the contest a bit more, and this year we decided that we will select two winners to publish: one in fiction and one in poetry. Comparing poetry collections to novels and novellas is truly an apples-to-oranges comparison, and we would like to be able to fully recognize the achievements in each genre by rewarding publication to two manuscripts. You can read the full guidelines for the book contest at our Submittable site. I have been working nonstop with last year’s winners, Tristan Hui and Anya Geist, on novel edits, and I am so excited to share their work with you later this year. We are all so amazed at the quality of work we receive for this contest, and of the evident effort put into each and every project. It is truly an honor and a pleasure to read your manuscripts, and I cannot wait to see what this year brings. To kick off the contest, Naomi Kinsman of the Society of Young Inklings will be leading her Design a Novel Weekend Workshop, an intensive two-day class to help those of you who are starting a new novel. The workshop will meet on Saturday, April 10, and Sunday, April 11, from 9 a.m. to noon. PDT (noon to 3 p.m. EDT). Naomi is a wonderful teacher, and working with her will set a wonderful foundation for your work! Although we regret not being able to offer a free novel workshop at this time, there are scholarships available. And if you would like to support our mission to support all creative children, regardless of income, please consider making a donation. As always, feel free to write us with any questions. I can’t wait to read your work! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Anushka, 10, wrote a review of the 2015 novel Gorilla Dawn by award-winning author Gill Lewis, explaining how they think the novel “can inspire children and adults to work to conserve our environment.” From Young Blogger Dominic Ng: a persuasive article about their favorite video game, Minecraft. Ashlyn, 11, wrote an information-packed review/essay on George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm. To find out more about the autonomy of the self, check out a review of New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman’s 2017 novel, Restart, by Emily, 10. At last week’s workshop, participants learned about the volta, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and metamorphosis in order to write pieces that “veered.” Read some of the work created during the workshop here. Contest, partnership and project news Our Young Authors’ Studio Summer Camps with the Society of Young Inklings are now open for booking! Find out more and secure your spot at the Young Inklings website. To reiterate, we are launching our third annual book contest, so make sure to check out the full guidelines at our Submittable site. Happy writing! From Stone Soup March 2021 The Flowers That Live Forever By Iris Chen, 10 (Rye Brook, NY) A young girl walked through the gloomy roads of Brickville. As she walked, some rain began to fall. Huh, the girl, whose name was Olivia Judertt, thought. What perfect rain for flowers. Olivia loved her town, but it had no real color. She also didn’t like the fact that the town had no flowers. Olivia hated gloomy and gray things. She was very fond of flowers and color. Olivia loved coloring more than sketching, and she would rather get a colorful paint set than a phone as a gift. Her room was painted rainbow, and the first time you set eyes on it, you had to shield your eyes: the colors clashed together so much and it was too bright. So when she noticed that the town was missing color and flowers, her two favorite things, she decided to change that. One day she hopped into the kitchen with a new idea forming in her mind. “Mom, Dad!” she exclaimed. “I would like to plant some flowers in our backyard!” Mrs. and Mr. Judertt laughed uneasily. “Oh, silly girl,” they said. “The soil in our backyard isn’t nice enough for some pretty flowers. Besides, the weather here is very foggy, and flowers need plenty of sun.” Stubborn Olivia refused to give up. She emptied her piggy bank and walked to the closest flower shop. Olivia looked around the flower shop. Lots of colorless, grown flowers covered one side while seeds were stacked on top of each other on the other. She walked around, trying to pick out the just-right flowers. All the flowers there were expensive and not very colorful. “This is hopeless,” Olivia grumbled after half an hour of searching for the perfect seeds. Then something caught her eye. On the top shelf at the back of the store, sitting proudly right behind two really ugly flowers, was the most beautiful and colorful flower Olivia had ever seen. Olivia scrambled around for a stool to stand up on. She found one, climbed onto it, reached high, and brought down the flower. “Oh, it’s just a package,” she said to herself. The name on the package really drew her interest, though. It read, “THE FLOWERS THAT LIVE FOREVER.” . . . /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.
