Newsletter

In this week’s newsletter, as it’s the first of the month, we focus on our new June 2019 issue. Click the links to read some of our brand new content, and scroll down for contest and other news, plus the latest from our bloggers. Cover: “Flight Through the Cosmos,” photograph by Hannah Parker, 13 In this week’s newsletter, as it’s the first of the month, we focus on our new June 2019 issue. Innocent Yet Dire Words by Isabel Swain A book lover dreaming of a better life uses poetry to cope The Place Where It Isn’t by Eliana Schaffer One girl’s quest for perfection Possibility by Vandana Ravi A magical place of serenity and beauty comes to life in a daydream  Plus–poetry, a portfolio of Hannah Parker’s photographs, a story sequence, Letters to the Editor, and our June 2019 Honor Roll Letter from the Editor, June 2019 This is an issue about potential, possibility, and change. In Isabel Swain’s story “Innocent but Dire Words,” a young poet dreams of a better future for herself, while in Vandana Ravi’s short story, a girl dreams of simply another place. In Grace Jiang’s poems, nature comes to life again, after its seasonal death and hibernation, and in Andrew Wu’s story sequence “Nature in my Eyes,” nature changes in our eyes, as we attempt to see it from the angles and experiences of different creatures. Change is inevitable: we change, the world changes, time moves along. And, in the spaces between, in the time when it feels as if nothing is changing, we dream of the change that might happen. And yet when that change finally does occur—when yet again the rose blooms—it still feels miraculous. After reading this issue, I hope you will feel inspired to think and write about change—in the world or in you, past or future, real or imagined. Letters: We love to hear from our readers. Please post a comment on our website or write to us via Submittable or editor@stonesoup.com. Your letter might be published on our occasional Letters to the Editor page. Subscribers: read the new issue here! Contests and partnership news Contest: Write a Book! Start planning for our summer contest: book-length writing in all forms and genres by kids aged 14 and under (we have extended our usual age limit for this contest). The deadline for entries is August 15th, so you have the whole summer to work on perfecting your book, whether it is a novel, a collection of poetry or short stories, a memoir, or other prose. There will be three placed winners, and we will publish all three winning books in various forms. Visit our contest page and Submittable entry page for full details. Stone Soup’s books are getting some great reviews! Stone Soup joined LibraryThing a few months ago, and our books have been getting some great reviews from other members at LibraryThing and also on their own blogs. Visit our book pages and see what other readers are saying–and add your comments! Also, we have joined Goodreads! Are you on that social network? Please send a friend request our way! We also want to encourage you to leave a review any of the Stone Soup books you’ve read, like an Annual or a Stone Soup Book of . . . We’ve compiled a list of the ones listed on Goodreads here.Submit your creative work to Stone Soup Highlights from the past week online   Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. “Have you ever wondered about the clothes you wear? Where they come from and what happens to them when you no longer need them? Recently, I got very interested in learning more about clothes. It all started when I went with my mother to a clothing donation box in the parking lot of a small mall near our home.” Read the rest of Mahati’s fascinating blog post about the life cycle of clothes here. Remember Abigail’s piece about Polish traditions for spring? Well, she’s back this week, this time in Japan! Read about Hanami, the cherry blossom festival, and more in the blog post “Japanese Traditions for Spring.” Shop in the Stone Soup Store   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.

‘It was Lindy. She was helping my dad wash his car.’ Illustration by Kristin Trayer, 11, for “Lindy'” by Ari Rubin, 11. Published in Stone Soup, May/June 1993 and The Stone Soup Book of Friendship Stories, 2018. A Note from Jane Levi Writers are always looking for advice and ideas about how to make their writing better. One piece of advice I’ve heard and read often is “show, don’t tell.” I understood the general idea that it’s more powerful to reveal things to the reader through action and dialogue, instead of listing and explaining all the underlying thoughts and feelings in the order they happen. But I’ve sometimes worried that this approach might make my writing a bit too flowery or overly descriptive. Then, when I was working on the revised version of The Stone Soup Book of Friendship Stories, I read this week’s story: “Lindy.” This story was written by 11-year-old Ari Rubin and published in Stone Soup 26 years ago! Suddenly, reading this apparently simple and sparingly told story, “show, don’t tell” made a lot more sense. The whole story is “told” to us by a strong narrator’s voice. But he doesn’t explicitly tell us the real story underneath the story. He shows us the various events as they happened to him, so that—like him—we don’t understand Lindy’s bigger story until the very end. Then, we notice all the hints dropped along the way. We see the journey the narrator has been on, and how he got to where he is now in terms of his feelings about Lindy. This approach makes you want to read the story again. And then you see that the clues were there, cleverly laced in to the narrative. I love this story. It makes me cry every time I read it. But don’t let that put you off! It might just be me being sentimental! I am sure that however your emotions respond to “Lindy,” you’ll be excited to see how the author brilliantly controls what he shows us, what he tells us, how, and when, to make a complex emotional tale so simple and matter-of-fact. If you read something you love in Stone Soup, then do write and tell us about it, or leave a comment on our website. And, of course, if you are inspired by “Lindy” (or anything else in Stone Soup) to write or make something you want to share, please send that to us too! Until next time, Contests and partnership news Congratulations to our podcast contest winners! This week we announced the winners in our writing for podcast contest. Congratulations to Olivia Park, 12 (1st place), Claire Nagle, 12 (2nd Place), Tara Prakash, 12 (3rd place), and our two honorable mentions: Gemma Yin, 11, and Sabrina Guo, 13. You can read more about the winners and their prizes here. Announcing our Summer Book-Writing Contest We are thrilled to announce a summer contest for book-length writing in all forms and genres by kids aged 14 and under. (We have extended our usual age limit for this contest). The deadline for entries is August 15, so you have the whole summer to work on perfecting your book, whether it is a novel, a collection of poetry or short stories, a memoir, or other prose. There will be three placed winners, and we will publish all three winning books in various forms. Visit our contest page and Submittable entry page for full details. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. Abhi, one of our frequent contributors, recently won a national award for his short film. We’ve published it on our YouTube channel and featured it on our blog. The short film is called “An Unusual Sunday.” Watch it here. On Thursday we published a piece by blogger Maya Viswanathan called “My Fancy Cake.” Maya describes the experience of designing the cake for her Bat Mitzvah. Should she go with her gut feeling about the colors for the cake, or follow the advice of others? To find out, read her piece. From Stone Soup May/June 1993 Lindy By Ari Rubin, 11 Illustrated by Kristin Trayer, 11 I used to cringe each time our doorbell rang. Nine times out of ten the person on the other side of the door was Lindy, the girl from a few houses down the street. “Can you play today?” she’d ask. “No, I’m doing homework,” I’d say, even if I wasn’t. “Can I help your mom with the baby?” she would ask next. Before I could say no, there was my mom inviting her inside again. “Where’s the baby?” Lindy asked. She asked that same question every time she walked inside the house. And the answer was always the same. “He’s in the family room,” my mom would say, smiling as she watched me silently mouthing the words along with her. My baby brother, Kelly, liked Lindy. He liked her a little too much, if you asked me. He’d squeal and laugh when she made silly faces at him or tickled his feet. To make matters worse, whenever Lindy played with Kelly, she’d take out every one of his toys. You can guess who would have to put them away later on. While she was busy with Kelly and my mom, I’d sneak out of the room. But no matter where I went, Lindy soon found me. It was as though she had radar. “I’m bored,” she’d say. Why don’t you go home, then? I thought to myself, but I never could say it out loud. Most of the time she would just stand there and stare at me until I asked her to play Nintendo. She would talk and talk all through the game, especially when it was my turn to play. She talked so much that it ruined my concentration. I lost a lot of lives that way. If she had not been such a pest, I might have liked her visits. After all, she was quite