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Margot Smiling. Editor Emma’s baby daughter Margot (and her bunny) A note from William Top Stone Soup news! Margot is smiling! What a more wonderful story can there be than that? I remember those early months with my daughter, Stella, when I would just sit and watch her. I was mesmerized. A life awakening. They are small, but powerful! I know that Margot will already have Stone Soup Editor Emma, her father Conner, and that little pink rabbit fully tied to her orbit. Thank you, Emma, for sharing Margot’s picture with your extended Stone Soup family. I am asking all of you a favor. Please read and share “A Child’s View of the Death of George Floyd,” by Amara DeLong. This is an extraordinary reflection on the murder of Mr. Floyd.  Amara’s piece is that rare kind of writing that is created in response to an emergency: It is literary, it is well thought out, it makes you think, it won’t become dated. Amara is nine years old. This is profound writing by a young person. This is what Stone Soup is about–whatever your age, Amara has something important to say and she says it well. Amara, we thank you sincerely for sending your work to us and making us think so deeply. Amara calls the murder of Mr. Floyd a lynching and refers back to the groundbreaking work on lynching done by Ida B. Wells in the early 20th century. I learned a lot about Ida Wells last week when my daughter brought her up in the context of an eighth-grade homework assignment. If you don’t know who Ida Wells is, then please read her Wiki entry.  Summer Writing Camp The joint Stone Soup & Society of Young Inklings Summer writing camps are open for enrollment. The program is administered through the fabulous Society of Young Inklings. Naomi Kinsman Downing, the Society’s founder, is teaching several of the workshops. She read Stone Soup as a child, so we feel very good about our association with Naomi and her organization. She helped us with our first personal narrative fiction contest last fall. We were so impressed with her that we are collaborating with her on this summer program. Classes have already met their minimum enrollment numbers, so don’t delay too long before registering! For those of you who are interested in our now second annual long-form fiction contest, one of the summer workshops is in writing long-form fiction. This is also a specialty of the Society of Young Inklings, so I recommend this class for those of you who are already working on your novels. Our own Laura Mason, a Stone Soup parent, writer, and my colleague who runs the Wednesday Book Club is also teaching one of the Summer classes through our joint Stone Soup & Society of Young Inklings program. Nothing like the class she is offering has been done for young students before, ever! Here is what she says about it: “I’m Laura and I’ll be offering a new Stone Soup summer camp! Some of you know me from Book Club. I’m also a cultural anthropologist. In the camp, Anthropology at Home: Young Ethnographer’s Writing Workshop, I will teach the art of ‘autoethnography,’ a creative nonfiction form of personal writing used by anthropologists in their research. Part memoir writing, part early introduction to social science research, young writers will use autoethnography to construct their own personal narratives in the context of the current global pandemic. I hope you’ll join me!” Friday Writing Workshop Our free Friday Writing Workshop, originally scheduled to run until yesterday, will continue by popular demand (from us and the participants!). It shifts to 9 a.m. Pacific Time through July and then shifts to Saturday at 9 a.m. for the remainder of the year. We hope the earlier time will allow some of our subscribers in Europe, who had wanted to join, to be able to do so. We look forward to welcoming everyone who can make it starting next Friday! The Friday writing workshop does not conflict with the more intensive summer writing programs, so you can do both. Until next week, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #8 Last week’s Flash Contest (#8) was based on one of Stone Soup reader and contributor Molly Torinus’s daily creativity prompts—and it was certainly a popular one! We had a record number of entries with some very funny and imaginative stories and poems about what superheroes and supervillains do in their time off. It was great fun for us to read and judge all the entries alongside our reader judge. Thank you for your great decision-making and enthusiasm, Molly! This week we also unexpectedly received a few art entries responding to the writing prompt, and we have chosen one of those as a special honorable mention for art, as well (Wonder Woman is stuck trying to get into a Zoom meeting, a familiar situation for lots of us non-super-heroes right now!). Congratulations to all our winners and honorable mentions, listed blow. You can read the winning entries for this week (and previous weeks) at the Stone Soup website. Well done everyone, and keep on entering! Winners Enni Harlan, 13, Los Angeles, CA Julianna Muzyczyszyn, 13, Warsaw, Poland Lucy Berberich, 11, Oxford, OH Samuel McMullin, 10, Portland, ME Sophie Yu, 12, Houston, TXHonorable Mention (writing) Alice Xie, 12, West Windsor, NJ Yutia Li, 11, Houston, TX Daniel Shorten, 9, Mallow, Ireland Isabel Bashaw, 10, Enumclaw, WA Em Jay, 10, Austin, TX Honorable Mention (art) Chloe Mancini, 9, Glenside, PA Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Ben, 12, wrote a poem called “Believe,” with encouraging words about getting through this pandemic. In “It Was,” Grace, 11, writes a short but powerful poem about the beauty of the world, though it feels so far away from what we’re experiencing right now. Micah, 11, composed the very impressive “Moonlight Waltz.” Listen (or try playing it yourself!) on the blog. Anya, 13, pairs a poem about seeing a situation in two different ways with a lovely composite photograph of a tree. Check out “Perspective” here. Need more positive news

“Cloud Dancer” by Sage Millen, 12 (Vancouver, Canada) Published in the May 2020 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Sarah First of all, a special announcement: summer camps! Check out the website for our summer camp collaboration with the Society of Young Inklings. Right now we have three camps available that we’ll conduct via Zoom, but we’re working on bringing you more! We hope you’ll get creative with us this summer. What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during social distancing? I’ve found that in my spare time, I’ve been reading and cooking more than usual and have recently started a small garden. I hope you have also found some enjoyable hobbies to occupy yourself during this time. If you’d like to share what you’ve been doing, consider submitting a piece to our blog. I really liked the prompt for this week’s Flash Contest, from Stone Soup contributor Molly Torinus, which is what got me thinking about hobbies in the first place. Molly asked you to think of your favorite superhero (or supervillain!) and imagine what they do in their down time. I can’t wait to read what you’ve come up with! In a similar vein, Stone Soup contributor Anna Rowell wrote a Daily Creativity prompt on Wednesday that asked you to take one of your favorite characters and create a story about how they would act during the time of coronavirus. Both of these prompts ask you to dive into the world of fan fiction. If you’re not familiar, fan fiction is when a writer takes fictional characters or their worlds and adds onto them in their own story. While it’s fun to make up a story entirely of your own creation, sometimes it’s comforting to anchor your story with elements from books that you’ve read or movies you’ve seen. Maybe you’ve become attached to a character and want to place them in a new situation of your own invention. Or maybe you want to create a story where the characters from your two favorite stories meet! The possibilities for fan fiction are endless.One famous example of fan fiction is Death Comes to Pemberley by author P.D. James. The book takes place after the happily-ever-after conclusion of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. James takes the existing characters, like Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and places them in a new genre: murder mystery. Could you do something similar with one of your favorite books and imagine what could happen after “The End”? If Molly or Anna’s prompt inspired you to write a fan fiction of your own, think about how you can expand your piece into something longer. What elements of the original story or character do you want to keep? And in what ways do you want to expand and explore new ground? Until next week, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #7 The week commencing May 11 (Daily Creativity prompt #36) was our seventh week of flash contests, with another record number of entries including one from our youngest-ever Flash Contest entrant! We had fun meeting time travelers from different eras from ancient history (even dinosaurs!) to the present (yes, some time travel was projected into the future—it’s complicated!), and it was even harder than usual to choose our favorites. We commend all of the entrants for their imagination, and for the creative ways they found to bring their characters from the past into life in the present using clothes, language, and misunderstandings about contemporary everyday life to make them real. This week, we are announcing our five winners, whose work is published below, plus five honorable mentions. Congratulations, everyone! Winners (work published on this page) Isabel Bashaw, 10, Enumclaw, WA Samson Brown, 12, Cary, NC Ava Shorten, 10, Mallow, Ireland Michela You, 11, Lexington, MA Xuyi (Lauren) Zheng, 10, Guelph, Ontario, Canada Honorable Mentions “The Time Watch” by Hannah Nami Gajcowski, 10, Bellevue, WA “Lace, Frills, and Clever Jokes” by Samantha Lee, 10, Thomaston, CT “Prehistoric Visitors” by Sean Tenzin O’ Connor, 4, Bishop, CA “Panic From the Seventies” by Lauren Oh, 12, Cary, NC “A Dose of Time” by Ella Yamamura, 12, Cary, NC Remember, we are running the Flash Contest every week during the COVID-19-related school closures and shelter-in-place arrangements. It is always based on the first Daily Creativity prompt of the week. The prompt is posted on Monday, entries are due by Friday, and the winners are chosen and announced the following week. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Himank,12, illustrated a piece called “Utopia for Animals,” which shows how COVID-19 has impacted life for animals. Read an update from the Stone Soup Book Club’s fifth meeting. A poem from Marjona, 11, a student in Uzbekistan. Daniel, 10, reviews the book Heat by Mike Lupica. The book is about family, friendship, and baseball. Emerson, 12, wrote a poem called “Tick Tock” that emphasizes the strange quality time has taken during the time of coronavirus. We posted a cartoon by Natya, 12, called “How the Handshake Has Evolved.” Check it out and consider buying a print of it to support a nonprofit in Natya’s area. In her poem, Cora, 13, wonders about the way our lives have shifted since COVID-19: “Will it Ever End?” Abhyudoy, 13, reads his poem “A Brief History of a Fictional Virus.” Summer Camp: Young Author’s Studio Stone Soup is offering summer camp via Zoom in collaboration with the Society of Young Inklings. We’re calling it Young Author’s Studio. We’re offering three weeks with three different themes. Design a Novel: June 8–11, 2020 (9–11 a.m. PDT) Character Lab: June 15–18, 2020 (9–11 a.m. PDT) Design a Picture Book: June 22–25, 2020 (9–11 am PDT) For more information, visit the Young Author’s Studio website. From Stone Soup May 2020 One Hop at a Time By Sara Heller, 12 (New York, NY) Art by Sage Millen, 12 (Vancouver, Canada) The thin black straps from my leotard dug into my skin. My feet stung and ached inside my dirty, pink pointe shoes, and the humid room reeked of sweat.

“Portrait of Adolescence” By Rishika Porandla, 13 (Coppell, TX) Published in Stone Soup May 2020 Illustrating “Real Life Checkmate” by Harper Fortgang, 11 (San Francisco, CA) A note from William Flash Contest winners. One of our fabulous Stone Soup authors and photographers, Anya Geist, age 13, wrote the five Daily Creativity prompts for the week of May 4 and was one of the judges for the Flash Contest based on her Monday prompt. The five winning illustrations are outrageously good. Congratulations to Analise Braddock, 9; Anna Dollar, 13; Catherine Gruen, 13; Olivia Titus, 11; and  Elia Yamamura, 12. You can read the whole announcement (including the honorable mentions) below, and please be sure to look at their work at our website. Summer programs. For the first time, we will be offering summer writing programs. Stone Soup has teamed up again with the fabulous San Jose, California, program the Society of Young Inklings to offer Summer Zoom Writing Camps. (We ran our personal narrative contest with them last year, and we loved working together!) Full details will be published soon, so this is just to let you know that we have something planned for you. Classes will run for four days per week, Monday through Thursday, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. I will continue running our Friday Writers’ Workshop (free for Stone Soup subscribers), so there will be no conflict between that free ongoing class and the summer programs. The summer classes will run 2 hours a day. Pandemic fundraising news. Longtime Stone Soup writer Sabrina Guo and her family are doing a massive amount of work raising money and buying protective gear for medical personnel on the front lines in Long Island, where they live, and in New Orleans where they are supporting a program for immigrants in distress. Next week we will be sending a fundraising letter on Sabrina’s behalf. I will personally be donating several hundred dollars to her efforts. This disease knows no borders. It knows no boundaries. If there ever was a time to take to heart John Donne’s (1572–1631) observation “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee,” it is now. Sabrina’s work is saving lives. There is no administrative overhead, so $100 donated goes to buy $100 of needed medical supplies. Today, when I am writing this, I gave a workshop on bread history through Zoom. After the seminar was over, one of the participants wrote to me to say that she had had to leave early because “another member of my family died of Coronavirus.” Another! This is not abstract. If you don’t have a more effective way of helping save lives in your own community, then please respond with generosity to the letter we will be sending on Sabrina’s behalf. Please also read the latest update about her work, published on the Stone Soup website. Even though Sabrina is now 15, she will always be part of our Stone Soup family. I am also asking you to support Sabrina’s lifesaving efforts as part of your support for the passionate talented young people who make Stone Soup what it is. The Wednesday Book Group and the Friday Writing Workshop are both doing exceedingly well. Both groups are large, with the students doing really good work. It is a real honor for us at Stone Soup to finally be meeting and interacting with our Stone Soup readers and writers. These are no empty words—we are honored to be working with you and experiencing your talent in real time every week. Thank you. Everyone can read some of the output of the workshops and reports from the book group on our website. Do take a look, and you’ll understand why we are so excited! At some point, we will be publishing the projects for the workshops, as well. We (I) am a bit behind right now! For this weekend’s writing project, I suggest working from this one word: “changeable.”` Our lives were all going along on a certain pathway, and now they are totally changed. The weather can be changeable. Moods are changeable. Poem, story, play, dialogue, whatever works for you. Work with this idea: changeable. If you make something you are proud of, submit it to us. Until next week, Weekly Flash Contest #6: Draw or paint a scene from a book you are reading or have read. This week, we are announcing our five Winners, whose work is published on our website, plus five honorable mentions. We were so impressed by the fantastic work entrants produced, the different media used, and the creative approaches you all took. Congratulations, everyone! Winners (visit the website to see all of their work) Analise Braddock, 9, Katonah, NY Anna Dollar, 13, Monticello, FL Catherine Gruen, 13, Chino Hills, CA Olivia Titus, 11, Houston, TX Ella Yamamura, 12, Cary, NC Honorable Mentions Sienna Olsen, 9, Tauranga, New Zealand Yincheng Qian, 12, Dallas, TX Ava Shorten, 10, Mallow, Ireland Zoe Campbell, 10, San Francisco, CA Amelia Barth, 10, Elgin, IL Don’t miss the winning work, published at Stonesoup.com in the official contest announcement, here! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Leah, 12, wrote a poem memoir about her time in imposed social distancing. Read it here. Check out the update from our fourth book club, where we discussed The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz. In “The Monster,” Haopu (Max) Xu describes two horrors. His short piece creatively underlines the need to take COVID-19 seriously. Have you been having strange dreams lately? Daniel describes one of his dreams, which made him go, “Huh?” Read an update from our last writing workshop, plus all the impressive work that participants created. Ethan, 7, wrote a poem about how coronavirus interrupted his basketball dream. But he hasn’t given up yet. Do you have a birthday during quarantine? Anya talks about her upcoming birthday, which she won’t be able to celebrate as usual this year. While sad about not being able to continue traditions, Anya brings