An update from our sixth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 22, plus some of the output published below The Challenge: Simply, write a heavy story/poem—describe a place or character with heaviness. The Participants: Emma, Josh, Simran, Georgia, Anya, Sasha, Lucy, Zhilin, Ronny, Emi, Alice, Harine, Sinan, Aditi, Samantha, Svitra, Sena, Julia, Audrey Emma Hoff, 9,(Bronx, NY) Cloud Jumping Emma Hoff, 9 Every time I try to jump up to touch the black clouds, what bothers me most is that you can’t even enjoy falling back to the ground, because it’s a second of coming to the ground and then, “Whump!” you’ve touched it. I can’t jump very high. I can jump rope though, I used to pretend that the rope was a big white fluffy cloud, so I didn’t mind when I accidentally tripped over it. I would just imagine being on a large fluffy cloud, carrying me home, becoming my best friend, walking me to school every morning. When I was little, I thought the clouds had hope. I thought there were little angels hiding in there, all rosy cheeked and kind. Then they would hug me and lead me to a perfect, loving family. Now that I’m older, I know better. I know no family, perfect or not, will get me, because I already have one, no matter how horrible they are to me. And I’m old enough to know that angels don’t exist, and those little winged creatures in all the paintings are just figments of a very religious painter’s imagination. Anyways, the clouds are dark now. It’s going to rain, but I don’t want to go inside to my horrible family. I remember that in science class, we learned that the clouds have so much rain in them that eventually they let it all go. But I’ve always wondered, how do they let rain go? Do they have little trapdoors on the bottom of them? Or do they just explode, into a million hopeless black pieces? Sena Pollock, 14,(Madison, WI) The Memory Machine Sena Pollock, 14 It was a sunny day and the birds were all singing. I imagined that I could understand them. “You did it-you did it-you did it you’ll never get-a-way.” It was true, I had done it and now even the birds knew, and they were mocking me. The sun was too, shining so brightly that no one could overlook anything. If it had been stormy I could have – I don’t know what I could have done but it would have been better than living in the sunshine pretending that I was still the person I had been since I was six years old. The person I had been from then until yesterday. Yesterday, when I had broken the system that held and hid what I had done. I used to have insatiable curiosity, but now I know what I could find, and I don’t anymore. We had been playing on the scaffold, my little sister and I. She was only two years younger than me and I loved her more than anything, even ice cream, which in our little-kid minds was the highest compliment, to be loved more than ice cream. But when she said that I had stolen the toy giraffe, which had been mine since I was born, I forgot, and I forgot that we were on the scaffold, and I pushed her. She fell off the scaffold and she didn’t die, only broke her legs. While she was in the hospital, it was the only thing I talked about, and when my mom asked if I felt very bad about it, I said I would do it again and then I burst into tears. I was only being confused and contrary, but my mom had just learned that my sister would never walk again. My parents thought I was a danger to society, so they took me to the place where they put my memories in the machine. They gave me to a new family and lied about why. I think that they put their memories of me in a machine too. My new parents never told me I was adopted. But yesterday I got my memory back and now I know that somewhere I have a sister and she cannot walk and it is my fault. Lucy Rados, 14, (Buffalo, NY) Rain Lucy Rados, 14 It was raining—again. Just like it had been the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. It made the inhabitants of Old Town bored and gloomy, making them look forward to a chance where they could step outside without getting drenched and muddy. Even worse, it wasn’t the kind of rain that danced on the rooftops and made you want to run outside, or perhaps jump in a puddle or two. No, it was the kind of rain that came down in slow, plodding droplets, sucking energy out of everyone all of the time. If one, desperate after being cooped up, felt the need to step outside, they could bring an umbrella, but then it felt like a funeral, like one in a movie. They would look up at the sky, wondering when the gray would dissipate, and even if it did, whether any of the joy and happiness would come back with the sun. So many chose to stay inside, where at least they would not have to acknowledge the seemingly eternal grayness. And so Old Town stayed, for another long week of rain, rain and waiting. Svitra Rajkumar, 13,(Fremont, CA) Sinking Svitra Rajkumar, 13 Sinking… She felt her body plunge into the freezing water and hear muffled voices screaming above her. Although Lucy was sinking deeper and deeper, she felt at peace, and it didn’t hurt. In fact, she felt light, as though she could soar off into the sky any minute now. In a split second, her thoughts recollected as she realized her situation. All the tightness disappeared as though it was never there. Instead, it was
Workshops
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #5: The Poetic Turn
An update from our fifth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 15, plus some of the output published below “The turn is the most important literary effect since Homer wrote his epics… It is the dramatic and climactic center, the place where the intellectual or emotional release first becomes clear and possible.” -T.S. Eliot “If there is no turn, no transformative moment, then the poem is a journal entry, at best a laundry list of reflections and anecdotes, or what I think of as a ‘litany of relapses’–the barren passage of time unthwarted, moving predictably toward a predictable end.” -Gregory Pardlo For this week’s Writing Workshop, Conner turned our attention towards the multitudinous uses of the “poetic turn.” Building off an earlier talk on “veering,” the class began with a group analysis of the poem”Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” by James Wright. We then defined “the turn,” in its purest form, as the point when “a text breaks its deepest and most characteristic habit.” Next, we turned to one of the shortest stories ever written, “The Dinosaur,” by Augusto Monterroso, noting how the story’s independent clause, “the dinosaur was still there,” constituted a turn from the dependent clause, “When he awoke.” Thus, we learned that turns can even occur within a single sentence. We then turned to one of Kobayashi Issa’s haikus in order to denote how turns can constitute hypocrisy and contradiction. Following our discussion of Issa was a reference to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which, in its ending, represented a turn into magical realism away from its prior logic of realism. Our penultimate literary reference was that of Lydia Davis’ short story, “Mown Lawn.” We turned to this story as a depiction of multiple turns within a single space—in fact it was a story made up almost entirely of turns! Finally, as a warm up to our final prompt, we spent a minute trying to write out the last two lines in John Ashberry’s poem, “This Room.” The Challenge: Write a story or a poem that uses a “turn.” For example, this can be a turn like the constant shifting in Lydia Davis’ “Mown Lawn,” Issa’s haiku that had an ironic, imagistic shift, or like the turn in Ashberry’s poem, “This Room,” wherein he turns to address the reader. The Participants: Georgia, Jackson, Lucy, Sophia, Svitra, Liam, Aditi, Emma, Zhilin, Simran, Noa, Julia, Sasha, Sinan, Harine, Isolde, Josh, Sena, Alice, Samantha, Emi Isolde Knowles, 9,(New York, NY) The Bird Isolde Knowles, 9 The bird sat on the branch pruning its feathers. They were brilliant blue like the ocean. A butterfly carefully landed in a flower as its delicate wings beat it down. The beat of a woodpecker could be heard in the distance. A cow moved in a not too distant farmhouse. The bird cocked it’s head hungrily at a trail of ants working their way through the forest, every couple of ants carrying a leaf. A twig cracked under a heavy boot sounding not nearly as sinister as the truth behind it. Swoosh! The bullet struck the tree directly under it. The bird was off its perch and flying into the distance a split second later. The ring of the shotgun seemed to echo out. “Harry,” the hunter’s wife called from inside the cabin. “You’ve already caught us a quail, now leave the poor birds alone.” “Calm down. I can’t seem to catch anything anyways,” the gruff man replied. “There there; you should come inside and get your rest. Do any of your clothes need to be stitched up? I’m going to town to buy some new thread either way.” Aditi Nair, 13, (Midlothian, VA) Abandon Aditi Nair, 13 Bubble. Bubble. She watched her drink bubble. The green clear, plastic container Amazed the little girl. It was so perfect, Yet imperfect. Bubble.
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #4: Dialogue
An update from the fourth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 8, plus some of the output published below This week’s workshop on dialogue was led by the inimitable duo of Stone Soup ’20-21 Intern Anya Geist, 14, and Stone Soup contributor Madeline Nohrnberg, 14. The workshop began with a warm up activity challenging participants to write a scene of dialogue between two characters who hate each other talking about the weather, without ever explicitly saying they hated each other. For the purpose of their lecture, Anya and Madeline focused on various techniques of dialogue, beginning with an excerpt from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in order to show the technique of conveying lies. The next technique discussed was how to make dialogue seem realistic. Anya and Madeline had participants pick out lines from an excerpt of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders in order to pinpoint instances of realistic dialogue. Following this discussion was an excerpt from The Secret Garden that Madeline used in order to showcase the use of accents in dialogue. The next technique discussed was tone and context. We read an excerpted discussion between Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in which Dumbledore’s playful tone and unwillingness to address McGonagall’s more serious topic of discussion conveyed the complexity of subtext within dialogue. Then, in order to convey emphasis, Anya and Madeline utilized an excerpt from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Moon by Night that used italics in order emphasize specific words. In conclusion, Anya and Madeline summarized their techniques by grouping them into two categories; one, by using tone as in the case of The Importance of Being Earnest and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and, two, by using informal language to make dialogue sound realistic as in the other three examples. As always, at the end of the lecture we wrote! The Challenge: Either as a stand-alone or as part of a larger work, write a scene where the dialogue and exchanges between the characters are expressive. The Participants: (Anya and Madeline) Georgia, Jackson, Lucy, Sophia, Svitra, Liam, Aditi, Emma, Zhilin, Simran, Noa, Julia, Sasha, Sinan, Harine, Isolde, Josh, Sena, Alice, Samantha, Emi Emma Hoff, 9,(Bronx, NY) Practical Advice Emma Hoff, 9 “I drew a good picture today. You wanna see?” I asked. “I heard that if you cut off a chicken’s head, it’ll keep running. That true?” asked Uncle Morris, puffing on a cigarette. “Why are you asking me? And anyways, what does that have to do with art?” “Know it or not?” “I don’t!” “It’s true.” “What’s the point of this?” “The point of this, Robin, is ‘cause I’m trying to tell you that silly pictures don’t matter. Silly pictures won’t make you a living.” “Artists make money.” “Not with silly pictures. Not with silly childish pictures.” “I’m not a grownup yet! I’ll get better as I grow! Anyways, you haven’t even seen the picture!” “It of a chicken?” “NO!” “It of a cow?” “Stop playin’ around, Uncle Morris!” “I ain’t playin’, Robin.” “Then what are you doing?” “I’m here to take care of you, you know that, Robin. Your parents said that if something ever happened to them, I gotta take care of you. Something happened. You’ve been on this farm for months, and you still don’t understand that you gotta be a farmer. Everything else, too dangerous. I want to keep an eye on you. I don’t want you to die like your parents did!” “I’m not going to.” “How do you know?” “I just do. Drawing isn’t dangerous. Loving doing what you love to do isn’t dangerous.” “Robin, let me tell you a story. About your parents.” “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!” “Have it your way.” “Uncle Morris, don’t you understand? Being a farmer… it might not be dangerous, but no one likes farmers. No one I know, anyways. The kids at school call me Pork, because of how I hang out with the pigs, and draw them.” “Don’t listen to them kids. They don’t know anything. You, however, need to know that you are a farmer, through and through!” “But I’m not! I love animals, but I don’t like butchering them. Heck, I’m a vegetarian! I don’t want to work in fields all day. I want to draw nature, but not harvest it!” “Lazy girl.” “I’m not lazy! I just like drawing! Don’t you understand?” “I don’t. Not at all. But I’ll agree with you… for now.” Sena Pollock, 14,(Madison, WI) Somebody Else’s Sister Sena Pollock, 14 “Come on, we’re going to be late.” “Okay, okay. I’m coming. Just let me finish the chapter.” “No, you can’t. You have to come right now. Otherwise I’ll miss the first part.” “It’s just your stupid dancing rehearsal. It’s not like a job interview or anything.” “It is not stupid. And at least I have the courtesy to not make you late to one of your playdates with your weird friends.” “They aren’t playdates, we just go to the park and hang out. And they aren’t that weird.” “Sounds like a playdate to me. And what do you mean, they aren’t weird? You spend all your time talking about how weird they are.” “That’s different. I mean it in a good way.” “What
