An update from our forty-third Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 5, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, William took one of his earliest writing workshop topics—alliteration—and reworked it, adding more for the writers of the group to think about. In addition to alliteration, William also reviewed the technique of assonance, which occurs when the sounds in the middle of words repeat themselves. The class went over examples of alliteration and assonance, including from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The Challenge: Either find a piece of prose that you’ve already written, and add alliteration OR start something fresh using the techniques of alliteration. The Participants: Sage, Reese, Chelsea, Lena A, Delight, Madeline, Helen, Margaret, Hanbei, Peri, Julia, Pranjoli, Nami, Angela, Jonathan, Audrey, Gia, Jaya, Peter, Sierra, Arishka, Grace, Tilly, Mahika, Mia, Iago, Charlotte, Rachael, Lina. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Soul in the Clouds Nami Gajcowski, 11 I clutched a soft avocado in my hand and squished it slightly. It had just the right firmness and it would be fantastic in guacamole. I heard a sharp yelp, so I spun around to see a toddler with a desperate scream. I covered my ears before dropping the avocado into my shopping cart. Then, I pushed my items away from the toddler and found myself in the kids’ section. I was in the midst of stuffed zebras and gazelles with the faint buzzing sound of the child’s scream, somewhere near the produce section. I grabbed a plush zebra before dropping it into my shopping cart. I had no use for a zebra, but it would be my only memory of before. It would be the thing that held me onto terrifying, but true, reality. Tens of thousands of people went through this. But they had forgotten. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe it was tucked away deep inside their soul, no matter how much they tried to forget about it. No one had mentioned the seemingly perfectly nice people who brought everyone down with a betrayal. No one mentioned how many people were lost in the terrible escape. No one remembered that I was ten and was still clutching a stuffed zebra as the world fell at my feet and then turned into chaos. Or maybe it was forgiven and forgotten. But how could we forgive them? How could life go on as normal, with stores still selling pungent yet petrifying fruit that might’ve contained poison after the betrayal? How could they dare to do that? There was danger in this society. Hints of a downfall appeared here and there. Shocking incidents had confirmed that. But there were no rumors. No nothing. Any hint of what happened after the betrayal that happened now was not noticed or forgotten. Everything around me began swimming in my tear-filled eyes. I was no longer in the clutch of reality. I was floating… floating somewhere far and safe. Floating. Floating out of this world where people forgot about the horrors and tried – but would fail – to rebuild a new society and confirm that everything was okay. But nothing would be okay. Nothing. I could no longer see the grocery store. I was spinning in bright colors, clutching the zebra. Clutching the only thing that had tried and failed to bring me down to the ground. Even though I hated pretending everything was normal even though it wasn’t, I couldn’t go up into the air. I had to stay on the ground. Frantically groping around for something to hold on to was impossible. There was nothing to hold on to. My emotions began to conflict. Calm, terrified. Calm, terrified. Like the never-ending tidal wave that the moon brought. Like the days before the betrayal… like the calmness. But how could I give in to the sensation? I had to. It was the only way to survive. Visions of my life swirled around me. Of before. Of before the terrors. The zebra stuffy that I had– named Ellie – that I used to snuggle with every night. Of my old best friend. Of everything that had happened before. No. I needed to grab on to reality. I pondered shutting my eyes, hoping to block out the visions, but that would only take me farther away from the ground. I needed an anchor. I had no anchor. I had no someone who could be my anchor. I was floating. Floating. I would disappear soon. Off of the face of the earth. Up into the hands of the sky. No. No. No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t become a wisp of smoke – helpless against the world. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. But I was. I was no longer a person. I was a ghost. With trailing wisps of smoke. I was nothing. I was gone. My soul floated through the clouds. I tried to reach out for it, but it drifted out into the sun. I wasn’t dead. But I wasn’t living. I am an immortal body with no soul – an immortal body in the clouds. My soul continued to drift into the clouds. Soon it was gone. It had entered the sun. It was gone. Forever. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Sacrifice of the Sea Lina Kim, 11 Swimming seals sing songs of sacrifice, sending a seahorse to the seafloor. Tiny turtles turn and circle the swimming seahorse. Corals coo the carols of calmness, letting the little seahorse softly fall asleep. The shark swims by, stealing shells from the seafloor, and swims past the sleeping seahorse. The shark sweeps up the seahorse, swooping away to snack on the sleeping seahorse. The creatures are safe for another day. Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11, Newark, OH The Ocean Oasis Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11 The water teemed with wild things. The turtle’s whimsical thoughts were in tune with the sparkling, smiling sun and the beautiful blue-green bliss enveloping his shell. Eventually, he swam to the surface and paused his pondering, letting himself simply enjoy the
Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop #42: Ekphrasis
An update from William’s forty-second Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 22, plus some of the output published below William started off the Writing Workshop by explaining the concept of Ekphrasis, which typically refers to translating one piece of art from one format to another. As an example, William highlighted the poem “The Ambassador” by Emma Hoff, which was published in the January 2021 issue of Stone Soup. Emma’s inspiration for the poem was a painting by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (picture to the right). Additionally, William discussed Homer’s description of Achilles’s shield, Lucian of Syria’s description of a painting lost in ancient times, and later Boticelli’s painting that interpreted Lucian of Syria’s description. The Challenge: Write a piece that utilizes the technique of ekphrasis by reimagining a visual work of art into words. The Participants: Sierra, Mahika, Charlotte, Madeline, Julia, Lina, Reese, Nova, Mia, Hanbei, Iago, Reese, Peri, Gia, Jonathan, Nami, Sage, Lena A, Wesley, Rachael, Angela, Audrey, Grace, Delight, Jaya, Lena, Helen, Chelsea, Leo, Margaret. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Face of Time Nami Gajcowski, 11 I talked, but I could hear my words filing into her ear and out of another like a string of music notes. She held her violin at playing position, but when I asked her to play something, she just looked at the brown mahogany that the instrument was made out of and didn’t say anything. I took out my violin and played a drawn-out and mournful tune. She didn’t notice, or she didn’t care. I wasn’t sure which. I was impatient. I couldn’t teach music to a student who would only stand motionless. So, I sent her away a half-hour early.She didn’t move, but she said the first thing I heard her say during this violin lesson: “I will leave when I want to.” She wasn’t being defiant. Or maybe she was, but she used her words and twisted them into an innocent tone. So, I let her stay. I let her stay and stare at her violin. I made stabs of conversation. She never responded. I tried playing a lively tune. She continued to look like stone. Out of the blue, she stood up. Still holding her violin, she went to the coat hanger and grabbed her brown cloak off the golden hook. She set down her violin to fasten her cape. “Are you going?” I asked. She finished fastening her cape and grabbed her violin. It was eerie the silence that she made. Her footsteps didn’t make a sound. Her cape didn’t rustle. She opened the red doors, and quietly stepped outside my house. I stared at her. Something was intriguing. I knew that there was more to uncover to her. I felt that her silence held a secret. Maybe deep loss or unbearable pain. However, when her mother had dropped her off at my house for her first violin practice, she had maintained a stiff smile. That was probably for her talkative and over-eager mother. But when her mother left, her lopsided smile diapered, and she took a seat in front of my desk. She swiveled the chair to face my direction, and she picked up her violin as if she were about to play. She never did, though, and then that’s when I began to speak even though I wasn’t sure if she was listening. I stared outside my window. She walked down the street that was wet from rain, her violin in hand. I didn’t know where she was going, but there was something peculiar about her footsteps. Unlike when she was in the house, her footsteps made an ominous and echoing sound. I could hear her footsteps from across the street. The rain wet the ringlets of her brown hair. Though it wasn’t the brown I saw in my house. It looked a different color. Though if it were a color, what color was it? It seemed to change with the wind. It was unpredictable. It was changing. She looked like the corpse of time. Or maybe she was time itself. Her figure suddenly changed from a 12-year-old girl to an adult with a broad stance. She seemed to be ageing by the minute. Then, she disappeared. Had she died? No, now she was a baby. An innocent and gentle baby. There was nothing more to her, but she kept on crawling down the street as she began ageing again. However, there was something odd with the street. I had walked down it many times before, but something was different. It stretched out and into the rain. It was never-ending. The cheery buildings turned a drab grey. I could still see the girl. She was walking, but instead of going farther down the street, she seemed not to be moving forward. Suddenly, she turned back into the girl in my house. When I was teaching her the violin. She was the 12-year-old girl with brown hair that matched the color of her cape. I touched the window. Its smooth glass was now somewhat bumpy. Smoke billowed out of the girl’s cloak. The street turned to normal. The window became smooth. The girl disappeared. I never saw her again, but little did I know, she would change my life. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Horses in the Snow Lina Kim, 11 The two majestic horses plunged through the snow, tossing snowflakes off of the ground. The mare on the left had fur the color of a chestnut and a mane and tail the shade of peanut butter. A light sprinkle of snow coated her back. Beside her, on her right, was a stallion, black as night. Both had a small streak of white starting on their foreheads between their eyes, reaching down until it touched their muzzles. Snow-covered trees reached up to touch the light orange-pink sky. One tree’s thin trunk had bent over. The red-orange leaves coated in white reached to the ground desperately, but the trunk refused to give in,
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #6: Heaviness
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
