Newsletter

Call for Poetry Reviews by Writers Aged 13 and Younger Emma Wood, the new Stone Soup editor, is a poet. The September issue will be her debut issue, and it will also be our first themed one. September, also our first monthly issue, will be Stone Soup’s first dedicated to poetry. Emma has several interesting ideas for the issue that I think will help all of us, me included, get deeper into poetry. An example of one her ideas is to include poetry reviews. We are familiar with book reviews. Emma wants to publish reviews of individual poems. Quite a challenge! Emma has asked me to post the following in today’s Saturday Newsletter. From Emma: Do you have a favorite poem? We are looking for reviews of single poems to go in our September poetry issue. (When I was young, I just loved “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll!) Guidelines: Reviews should be between 300-600 words. The best ones will explore aspects of the poem—what is about? Are there images in it? Is there rhyme? Does it tell a story? Are there any unusual words, or any interesting punctuation or spacing? What feeling does it leave you with? Explain why you like it, perhaps connecting it to an idea or experience you have had, or maybe even another book or poem you’ve read. Poetry reviews can be submitted to the “Reviews” section of Submittable. Social Media and Younger Writers’ Writing A confession. Social networking is not our strong suit. Our Twitter and Facebook pages have never really gone anywhere. At various times we have tried more frequent postings, but I think we just don’t know what our potential readers want to read in that format,  our how, where, and when to post it. We need help. What education and literary oriented Twitter feeds do you follow? Is there a group or business whose Facebook page you think is particularly effective? What kind of information about children, children’s creativity, or whatever else do you think we should tweet or post? We have also just started an Instagram account. If any of you reading this are good at social media, perhaps even do this for a living, would you get in touch with me? You can just reply to this email. Please look at our Twitter feed, our pictures on Instagram. and our Facebook page and then let me know what kind of information you’d like to see there. And, the all important, can you help us by actually tweeting and posting and/or help us fashion a sensible program? The story this week, Mexican Song, is by a ten-year-old. I’d like to clarify that Stone Soup is open to any writer age 13 and under. In Stone Soup’s early years we published more work by very young writers than we do today. Very young writers sometimes express themselves differently. As they do not have the technical skills to write in standard English they make up grammar and expressions as they go along. This can be interesting. One hundred years ago, in the first decades of the 20th century, artists were pushing boundaries in writing, painting, sculpture, music, dance, photography — you name it. There is a way in which very young writers are always pushing boundaries. I just want to be clear that if you have a younger sibling in the house who writes or tells stories that are kind of fantastic, that we’d like to read them. Work that has something to say and says it in an unusual way is always of interest to us here at Stone Soup. Until Next Week William Calling All Teachers! Lots of elementary and middle schools use Stone Soup as a teaching aid or to motivate their pupils to create. You can order for your school single use and site license subscriptions, either directly from us or from any of the magazine agencies your district orders from (such as EBSCO or W.T. Cox). If you would like a trial site license then please sign up for a trial on our website.The site licenses can be based on email or IP address so students can have access to the website at home as well as in the classroom or school library. From Stone Soup May/June 2012 Mexican Song  By Kimberly Vance, 10 Illustrated by Frances Burnett-Stuart, 11 Natalie Dean grabbed her violin’s bow and began rosining it feverishly. The International Mariachi Conference was tomorrow. It was the biggest performance of the whole year. And she had to solo, on a microphone in front of thousands of people. You can do this, she thought. Her song, “Sabor a Mi” (Savor me), ran through her head like a CD that played one song a million times, over and over… Tanto tiempo disfrutamos De este amor, Nuestras almas se acercaron Tanto así, que yo guardo en tu sabor, Pero tú llevas también, Sabor a mí… Miserable questions chased after the lyrics. Why did my school have a mariachi? Not—I don’t know—orchestra, or band or something? Like a normal school? And why on earth did my innocent five-year-old self join? Why didn’t I see this coming? And so on and so on. . . . . more

I am often asked, are there Stone Soup authors who have gone on to be published writers? The answer is, yes. We always like to hear who they are, and now that we have this weekly newsletter, we have an easy means of passing on the news to you.We just heard from the parents of Stone Soup author Allison Trowbridge (1988), with a copy of Allison’s first published book, Twenty Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning. It is a work of non-fiction written as a series of letters. The work is very personal and is appropriate for its intended reader — young women who are just embarking on their post-school adult life. One thing we look for here at Stone Soup is writing from the heart, and this is certainly a work that speaks from Allison’s deepest feelings. She chose a letter format. She created a fictional reader to whom she addresses her letters. This is an original structure for a book of advice about life. It is a good idea! Congratulations Allison on your first book!As a writer myself, I can say that while I don’t write books that are explicitly in the form of letters, I do think of my books and articles as letters. I always have a clear idea who I am writing for, and as I write I imagine myself talking to that reader. My first book, The Magic of Fire, a book about cooking on a fireplace, actually literally started as a letter. I spent a month sitting in a Paris café working about four hours per day writing a letter (a long letter) to my friends Ga Lombard and Judith Milton. They had shared many, many meals at my house that were cooked on the fire and wanted to know how to do it themselves.  I never did send that letter as it took some years to finish it, and by that time it had grown to some three hundred pages. Whatever you write, it will be stronger if you at least imagine that you are writing to someone. I think this is true whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. As you write a story for Stone Soup, think about someone actually reading it. Writing for Stone Soup is different from writing in school. Your teacher commands you to write and you don’t have a choice. Even when you don’t feel like it, in school you have to write that story and turn it in. Writing for Stone Soup is a choice. I hope that whenever you choose to write for us that you do so because you have something to say that you want others to read. Allison’s parents sent us her book along with a letter in which they talk about how important it was to Allison to be published in Stone Soup. They wrote, “Allison’s experience of being selected for Stone Soup Magazine was such a huge encouragement to her that she still talks about it today.” That is almost thirty years later! It  actually easy to get your work published in Stone Soup. If writing is your passion, and you have something to say that you think Stone Soup readers will want to hear — a story that will take them deep into your imaginary world — then please do send us your work. Parents, grandparents, and friends of Stone Soup who are also reading this newsletter: you can try to encourage the young people in your life to write by giving them a journal for the summer. Of course, if you live with a young person, then there is nothing like modeling behavior. In other words, sit down together so you are both writing — by hand or on a computer. The art. The amazing drawing in this newsletter is by a fourteen-year old Egyptian boy, Moustafa Mouhamud Hussein, and it was drawn in 1977. I’ll write more about it in another newsletter. For today, I just want you to start thinking about the drawing you might make of a complicated space with lots of people, like a ball game. Notice the different colors between the many people watching the parade. Until next week, William Survey Results from Last Week: I am very pleased that 78% of the respondents to last week’s survey on reviews in Stone Soup are Stone Soup readers age 14 and under. The results are very useful. Thank you! The results: You are interested in book reviews (every respondent!), then music, followed by art and movies. What you were super not interested in are reviews of video games and apps. I don’t know whether this is because your parents were looking over your shoulder (or you really aren’t interested in reading reviews of video games – given how many video games my daughter plays I had thought that video game reviews would be a good idea, but maybe there’s less to say about them and its more fun just to play!) Apps were also not of much interest. As you all know, we have been publishing book reviews for decades. But what your enthusiasm for book reviews suggests is that it would be a good idea for us to have a full blown book review section on our web site. We’ll see what we can do. Many of you suggested titles of works you’d like Stone Soup to review. We will do further work on the survey results this week and hopefully next week we’ll be able to begin posting works we’d like to see reviewed — and clarify what kinds of reviews we are looking for. Thanks to all of you who helped us out with your opinions. From the Stone Soup issue: May/June 2010 Wave Song Written by Anna J. Mickle, 12 Illustrated by Ida Otisse McMillan-Zapf, 12 A vast land Small enough to comfort me Not an ocean, too big Not a pond, too small A meadow of green A field of waves So loud, so soft So big, so small

Illustration by Max Strebel, 12, published in Stone Soup 2002. A Note from William Rubel Thanks to those of you who took our survey last week on themed issues. Here are some preliminary results: 60% of the respondents were age 14 or under. This is great! Thank you, Stone Soup readers! The adult respondents were divided between parents (20%), grandparents (10%), and other adult friends of Stone Soup (10%), a great balance. 80% of you like the idea of themed issues, with the understanding that we don’t overdo it. So, we are thinking that we might have three or four themed issues out of eleven issues in a year. What about the topics? Well, Nature is the favorite theme suggested, and Sports is the theme that was disliked the most. Given the relatively small numbers of responses it is probably safe to say that Food, including recipes, Family, Photography, Comics/Animation, Poetry, and Science Fiction are all quite well liked. However, in the comments section many more fantastic ideas were put forward, so we are thinking of sending out another set of questions on themes in a week or two, building on this first one. To the adults who wrote more extensive comments, thank you. New survey on reviews! As you all know, Stone Soup has in the past only reviewed books. Our new editor, Emma Wood, would like to expand the range of what we review beyond that, and we’d like to know what kind of reviews you would like to read in Stone Soup. Do you think we should review movies, TV shows, video games, or something else? Tell us your opinion in this new survey, and also tell us the titles of any books, movies, games or TV shows you might like to see reviewed (or review yourself). Emma will publish lists of titles we’d like to have reviewed based on your suggestions, so please let us know what you think! Please Take the Stone Soup Reviews Survey. Thank You! Simplified submit form: As my daughter is reminding me constantly, school is nearly out. Please look through your stories, poems, and artwork and select the best from the year to send to us. Our editor, Emma Wood, has simplified the submission form so it’s never been easier to send us your work! In my other life, as some of you know, I am a writer. Right now, I mostly write about bread. On Sunday, I am going to Charlotte, North Carolina. I am giving a talk about the history of bread at a conference. I need to finish my talk – so, this being Saturday morning, I’d better get back to it! Until next week, William From the Stone Soup issue: November/December 2000 Memories of Sunset Lake Written by Mandana Nakhai, 11 Illustrated by Zoe Paschkis, 12 It was getting dark. Zoe lay on the hammock on the front porch eating an ice-cream sundae. She looked out at the golden lake thoughtfully. The porch door slammed. Zoe scooted over for her twin brother, Hunter.“Thinkin’?” Zoe nodded. She slurped a chocolate drip off the side of the tall glass. Hunter carefully watched Zoe’s gaze drop toward the other white-picket-fence houses ringing the lake. “I just can’t believe the summer’s over.” Hunter got up and dangled his feet over the porch, brushing some blond hair out of his intense green eyes. “Well, we can come back next summer. We have to go back to school, you know.” Zoe nodded, wishing that the summer would never end. Cool air blew the trees as the twins walked down to the dock. “I just wish we could have done something interesting. All we did is sit around on the dock the whole time.” Read more