Our March 2023 Flash Contest was based on Prompt #244 (provided by Stone Soup intern Sage Millen), which asked that participants write a fairy tale with a twist: the princess had to be the villain. With such a fascinating prompt, it’s no wonder we got over 40 submissions! Among those 4o+ submissions were a story about a tiger-poaching princess, a story about a space princess, a story about a princess willing to blow up her betrothed, and a story about dueling Disney princesses. As always, thank you to all you participated, and please keep submitting next month! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “Birthright” by Asha Akkinepally, 12 “Her Carmine Eyes” by Eiaa Dev, 13 “Princess Preservation” by Rhea Kachroo, 12 “The Sun Shines Again” by Pranjoli Sadhukha, 13 “The Princess’s Tiger” by Melody You, 12 Honorable Mentions “The Princess Who Didn’t Want to Marry” by Isabella Bhagwandin, 12 “A Land Frozen in Time” by Aaron Duan, 12 “Within the Tower Walls” by Juwon Ha, 11 “Warrior Princess” by Kaia Lee, 9 “Damsel of Distress” by Emily Tang, 13 Birthright Asha Akkinepally, 12 He lay on the hard, cold floor. He led his sister to the dance floor. His clothes were ragged and overlarge. His clothes were perfectly tailored and brand-new. The ceiling dripped with a reeking, unidentifiable liquid. The ceiling was hung with glowing chandeliers. He winced as someone cried in pain. He laughed as his sister twirled around. Someone shoved a tray of stale bread and unripe pear at him. The table was set with a feast of the finest culinary delights. He raised a tin water cup to his lips. The king drank from a crystal wine goblet. He coughed, sputtering at the foul taste. The king let out a strangled cry as his eyes rolled back and his throat turned blue. With a final scream the ruler collap— He closed his eyes. He did not want to relive those moments–those moments when his father died. Those moments that cruelly threw him into this prison, stripping him, too, of his life. Of all he had ever known. Honestly, he wasn’t sure who had it worse. His father’s passing was supposed to be his rebirth. He was supposed to be in the palace, preparing for his coronation. Instead, he was in the kingdom’s most infamous prison, sharing air with its most infamous criminals. “Get up,” a guard barked. All the deference he had once commanded had vanished, replaced by an almost inhumanity. “You have a visitor.” He rose to his feet, blinking matted hair out of his eyes. Only one person remained from his old life—one person believing his innocence, that he did not poison the king, that he did not wish the worst for his own father. A girl entered into his line of sight then, looking out of place in the damp, dark prison, with her layers of tulle and glittering tiara. “Leave us,” she commanded the guards. “But, Your Highness—” She threw them an imposing glare. “I said leave us.” They scurried off, and he had never felt more grateful to his sister. She looked him up and down, examining his wretched state. He expected her to exclaim at how they were treating him, to demand reprisal from the injustice, but instead—“You are rather disappointing.” He recoiled. “Excuse me?” She eyed him disgustedly. “Look at you, reduced to this pathetic mess.” What was wrong with her? “Pathetic? The throne is my birthright! I’ve been working my whole life for it, and it’s wrested from my grip just as I am finally about to taste it! Of course I’m going—” “It’s your birthright,” she repeated softly. “Yes. You did nothing more than exist and the throne was yours.” She advanced closer. “Do you know what you are right now? Useless. Do you know what I’ve been my whole life? Even though I am, by far, the more deserving between us? Even though I am the one who knows our exports and imports by heart, who is fluent in 10 languages, who memorized all the foreign ambassadors’ names?” They were inches apart, and there was a rage simmering in her gaze that he had never seen before. “Useless.” His world was dying more and more with every drop of venom she infused her words with. Or perhaps he was dying—he felt little more than an empty vessel at the moment. She stepped back, smoothing her gown and her expression. “Until now. I’ve always been an excellent multitasker.” Realization dawned. “You killed Father! You framed me!” He was filled with an emotion he’d never experienced before. How could his sister do this? When had she planned it? “All so you could have the crown!” She tsked softly. “Unfair, isn’t it?” She laughed. “I know the feeling. In my experience, when a game’s unfair,” she said, smiling callously, “you change the rules.” She sauntered out. “Never trust anyone, dear brother. Especially your own family.” It was the last thing she ever said to him. The guards scampered back in, and he had never felt more hateful to his sister. He fell back to the floor. His threadbare clothes spread around him. Wet splattered on his face. Someone moaned in agony. The bread and pear nearly broke his teeth. He didn’t touch the water. It tasted bad. Her Carmine Eyes Eiaa Dev, 13 Chirps, croaks, and caws echo throughout the vast, endless forest. The grass glimmers under the sun’s harsh, unrelenting glare. Drops of the early morning dew cling to its fibers, glistening with a keen freshness. Flowers of all kinds, from the extravagant hydrangea to the lethal aconitum, dance in the soothing breeze. But behind its façade of beauty, the forest holds the deepest and darkest of secrets. Obscured by aging vines, a pair of carmine eyes glow with murderous intent. Who would have thought that the bane of the kingdom’s existence was a lot closer than
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Saturday Newsletter: June 11, 2022
Nest Building (Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200) By Sage Millen, 13 (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), published in Stone Soup June 2022 A note from Emma I want to start off this week’s newsletter with some good news and congratulations: Anya Geist’s novel, Born on the First of Two, was selected as a finalist in the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Young Author (Under 25) category. We are so proud of Anya and thrilled this wonderful novel is getting some recognition. Take this as a reminder to add Anya’s book to your summer reading list, and to be on the lookout for new copies with the finalist sticker on the cover! This also reminded me that I have been meaning to share a bit of book news with you all for some time now. In addition to my work as editor of Stone Soup and as a writer, I also work with high school students on their college application essays. And last spring, I published The Complete College Essay Handbook, a practical guide to writing college essays that I co-wrote with my colleague. Writing a practical guide was fun, and also more challenging than I expected. The most rewarding part (aside from being done, hah!) was that putting my process and advice down on paper not only reinforced what I already knew but actually pushed me to refine and improve our process. Writing remains the most powerful I know for thinking through ideas and improving upon them–whether they are the loftiest or the most trivial. Anyway, I am proud of the book and ask you to please consider recommending it to any teenage friends or relatives about to embark on this process, or to any high school English teachers or counselors you may know. Finally, since the subject of this newsletter has been books, I want to take the opportunity to remind you all that our 2022 Book Contest is still open for submissions. It closes on the 22nd of August. I know many of you began your books weeks ago, but if you are still interested–it’s not too late to start working on one to submit this year. We always focus on the fact that good writing takes time and multiple drafts. And sometimes it does. But sometimes it comes very quickly, and that doesn’t make it less or worse than something that takes more time! “First thought, best thought,” as Allen Ginsberg used to say. More than once, I have written something quickly then revised it and revised it, only to realize after a few months that the first draft was the better version. (I am not against revision by any means; many times, I have had the reverse experience–of completely rewriting in revision.) So, for those of you who are curious and excited at the possibility of writing a book–it’s not too late! Happy writing! Anthropology of the Everyday: The Art of Creative Nonfiction, June 13-16 with Laura Moran Do you like writing about your life experiences? Would you like to learn some techniques for making your nonfiction writing more compelling and creative? In this class you will learn a method of personal writing, sometimes used by anthropologists, that combines storytelling with writing about the details of your own everyday life. Students will practice a variety of Ethnographic Writing techniques, from self-reflection, to gathered observation, interviews, and investigation. Students will also participate in an artist-led activity to create a piece of illustrated artwork of everyday life, designed to accompany their ethnographic writing. Refugee Project Half Baked Art Collaboration, June 20 & 22 This workshop will allow participants to work on a piece of artwork in collaboration with a student living in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. The dates for this set of two workshops are 6/20/22 (9-11am PT) and 6/22/22 (9-10am PT). From Stone Soup June 2022 The Hummingbird Whisperer By Michael Chao, 13 (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) It was a lazy day in the month of May when I got that so-memorable phone call from my sometimes-bothersome twin sister, May. “Michael, hurry, hurry, come over!” screamed my sister, who was practicing tennis with Mom at a nearby tennis court. “Why? I’m busy!” I shouted back. “There’s two baby birds on the court. I think they’re still alive.” My ears perked up, and instantaneously my irritating sister became my wonderful sibling. “I’m coming right now!” I dragged Dad off the couch and made him drive me to the tennis courts. When we arrived, I saw Mom and May standing over two orphaned rufous hummingbirds, barely a week old. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was my first time seeing hummingbird nestlings. They were only about the size of a stick of gum, pink-colored, and naked, with eyes closed. They shivered and ruffled what little down they had, trying to shelter from the ocean breeze. Delicately, I cupped them into the palm of my hand while using my other hand to block the wind. It was so nerve-racking to hold something so small and delicate. After gently placing the nestlings into a small insect cage padded with tissue paper, I began looking for their nest, hoping to find their mother, who was probably frantically seeking her young ones out. Along the boundary of the tennis court was a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence with ivy covering it from top to bottom. The ivy had grown thick, and probably hadn’t been cut back in years, which would make finding their home, a nest about the size of silver dollar, an almost impossible task. But the “needle in a haystack” chance of finding their nest didn’t deter me. I desperately wanted these little nestlings to live. I searched everywhere—every branch, nook, and cranny of ivy along the borders of the tennis court. After a couple of nerve-racking hours, I finally found the nest. It was located high up near the tree canopy, where neither my father, who is six-foot, three inches tall, nor I could reach. But mother bird was nowhere to be found. I
Saturday Newsletter: June 4, 2022
My Dream (pastel) By Leticia Cheng, 9 (San Jose, CA), published in Stone Soup June 2022 A note from Laura Happy summer! I hope everyone is enjoying the bustle of activities that usually accompanies the end of the school year and is looking forward to some relaxation in the summer sun. This week, I would like to draw your attention to “Two Poems,” by Iris Chalfen. Iris’s first poem, “Springring,” is light and playful, like sunshine itself, while her second, “Sleep,” offers a visceral and sumptuous depiction of giving oneself over to a feeling-sleep, in this case! Despite their brevity, both of Iris’s poems make such effective use of language, drawing on all our senses, so that we know just the feeling she’s describing. Over this past week, I have become quite the expert on sleep! I have Covid (a good reminder that this illness is still very much with us, despite the warmer weather and longer days). Thankfully, being fully vaccinated and boosted, my symptoms are relatively mild. But I know just what Iris is describing when she writes, “We threw ourselves into a lingering feeling. I held that feeling for a moment…” Both of Iris’s poems do a beautiful job of playing with language in unexpected ways, but ultimately drawing us into something familiar and recognizable. Leticia Cheng’s pastel, “My Dream” provides an evocative and vivid complement to these pieces. To me, it feels both fantastical and familiar. For this weekend’s activity, I invite you to use Iris’s poems as an example and write a brief piece of writing that draws heavily upon sensory images. Invite your reader to call upon the imagery you hint at in vivid detail by using a few well-chosen words that draw upon the five senses. As always, if you would like to share your work with an audience of peers, please submit it to us via Submittable! Refugee Project Half Baked Art Collaboration This workshop will allow participants to work on a piece of artwork in collaboration with a student living in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. The dates for this set of two workshops are 6/20/22 (9-11am PT) and 6/22/22 (9-10am PT). Sign up here! In closing, June 20th is World Refugee Day. I invite you to take some time this month to explore the wealth of material displayed on the Refugee Project web portal. The writing and artwork you’ll find here was all created by your peer artists and writers from refugee backgrounds. Until next time, Anthropology of the Everyday: The Art of Creative Nonfiction, June 13-16 with Laura Moran Do you like writing about your life experiences? Would you like to learn some techniques for making your nonfiction writing more compelling and creative? In this class you will learn a method of personal writing, sometimes used by anthropologists, that combines storytelling with writing about the details of your own everyday life. Students will practice a variety of Ethnographic Writing techniques, from self-reflection, to gathered observation, interviews, and investigation. Students will also participate in an artist-led activity to create a piece of illustrated artwork of everyday life, designed to accompany their ethnographic writing. Iris Chalfen, 8 (Cambridge, United Kingdom) From Stone Soup June 2022 Springring & Sleep By Iris Chalfen, 8 (Cambridge, United Kingdom) Springring Whitewrite Flyhigh Windwing Blossombright Songsoul Mebe Beebold Sleep The calm, warm light filled the room, Our voices, whispers. Laughter untangling into a soundless sleep. We threw ourselves into a lingering feeling. I held that feeling for a moment, Then hid it, Hid it so it could be safe, Hid it so I could carry on, on, In my deep, deep sleep. To read more from the June 2022 issue, click here! Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. 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.
Saturday Newsletter: March 26, 2022
Untitled By Sage Millen, 13 (Vancouver, Canada) A note from William What a gorgeous spring day it is here in Santa Cruz, California! I hope that as March gives way to April that all of your gardens are at least beginning their spring re-birth. And, with the coming of spring, I’d like to announce that our spring session classes—beginning April 23—are up and ready on Eventbrite! Once again, we are offering two writing classes—mine, Saturdays at 9 AM Pacific, and Conner Bassett’s, Saturdays at 11 AM Pacific—as well as Book Club with Maya Mahony Saturday April 30 and Saturday May 28 at 9 AM Pacific. We’re sorry not to offer a short form filmmaking class with Isidore Bethel this go-round, but hope to once again offer it in the future. In the meantime, please watch some of the amazing short films our students made in the fall session of 2020. In terms of the behind-the-scenes activity at Stone Soup, these last few weeks find us in a lull. Projects are in process. Our website revisions are coming along. Sophia Opitz, our fabulous administrator, and I had a very good meeting on Friday with our web developers. We will start seeing website changes go live next week. Mostly, Sophia and I have been working on the educator pages getting the new curriculum material in shape preparatory to the launch of our site license beta testing program in a couple weeks. I’d like to talk about Sage’s fabulous photograph showing two kids reading Stone Soup under a blanket. As part of our website revision we are making sure that all photographs on the site are by kids. And, I will say, what a difference that is making! Our Stone Soup photographers have a creative flair that sets their work apart. If you are a photographer age 13 or younger and would like to be part of our pool of web photographers, please write to sophia@stonesoup.com. Weekend project: I want you to look at this double portrait. It is a photograph in which we, the observers, share a private moment with these two girls. Unlike most portraits in which the subject is looking directly at the camera, the girls in this photograph are focused on the issue Stone Soup they are reading—December 2021, to be exact! There is clearly lots I could say about how this photograph is framed and lit—the black background and gentle foreground lighting frame the girls to perfection—but in the interest of keeping things simple, I want you to focus on their eyes, on the direction of their gaze. I am not asking you today to compose a picture with careful lighting, as we see here, but what I am asking you to do is take a portrait of someone in the midst of an action—someone doing something alone or with someone else. What I want you to capture is that look where the person is focused on something else. Practicing, reading, cooking, drawing, typing. Doing something on their phone. What I want you to do is focus on the eyes. I want you to take a photograph in which the eyes of the person you are photographing are focused on what they are doing, not on you. There is one kind of intensity when the person you are photographing is looking directly into your camera—so that when we look at the picture they are looking at us. There is another kind of intensity when you capture the look on someone’s face who is absorbed in what they are doing, and that is the intensity I want you to go after this weekend with your phone or camera. As always, if you feel especially good about your photograph, please submit to us via Submittable. Until next time, From the Stone Soup Blog March 2022 Spring By Grace Zhuang, 6 (Vienna, VA) Winds are running around Telling everyone the good news, “Spring is coming!” “Spring is coming!” The little delphinium Looking around Looking for spring. She did not know that She herself is the spring. To read more from the March Issue, click here! Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. 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.
Saturday Newsletter: January 15, 2022
The Rise of Democracy, Acrylic | Keira Zhang, 12 (Los Altos, CA), Stone Soup January 2022 A note from Laura This week I want to draw your attention to the play featured in January’s issue, Spring Will Not Die. It was written by a group of Syrian refugees living in Turkey who are members of Karam House, one of our Refugee Project contributing organizations. The play presents a fictionalized account of young people’s pivotal role in the anti-government protests that ultimately fueled the uprisings known as the Arab Spring. When I read this play, I think about a sense of ownership, a sense of belonging, or even entitlement to a place and to people, without which it is nearly impossible to envision change. The play begs the questions: whose world is it to change? Whose job is it to affect that change? The answer, of course, is that it is each of ours. But this notion can only be fully realized with a strong sense of belonging to a community and the social ties that make such a sense of belonging possible. If you are looking for a creative exercise this weekend, I urge you to capture a sense of community wherever it emerges for you, and with whatever medium you choose. Find a place in or around your home or community that is busy with people—preferably a place that you visit often (maybe it’s your own kitchen, a park or café nearby, your school cafeteria) and sit in observation for about twenty minutes. Use all five senses to observe and record everything that is happening around you, either with words or with the visual art medium of your choice. Be descriptive and pay special attention to the people in the space and how they’re interacting with one another. Ask yourself: Who is present and who is absent? Are people differentiated from each other in any way? Does someone appear to be in charge of the space? Do there appear to be spoken or unspoken rules that dictate behavior in this space? In capturing a space and the people that occupy it through your writing or artwork, see if you can capture a sense of community. As always, if you’re happy with what you’ve written or created, we would love for you to share and submit it to us via Submittable! An Update from the Refugee Project I had the privilege of conducting a similar activity to the one suggested here with young writers and artists at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya this past week. As the young people shared their texts and artwork describing scenes from their daily lives, many things were unfamiliar to me—a description of a confrontation with a lion after climbing down a mango tree and running into the river to escape a snake; hundreds of people lining a dirt road amidst throbbing music and rising dust during a miles-long bridal procession; a boy, alone in the middle of the road, his clothes and shoes tattered and worn from days of walking. But more striking than this were their vivid descriptions of the things that were familiar, the things that we can all relate to—people at the markets catching up and buying goods, “their white teeth chattering as monkeys;” students together after a long day, doing their washing, watering their trees, playing sports, relaxing, laughing, arguing, telling stories and singing together. In other words, their writing captured the universal experience of community as it emerges in daily life. I hope to share some of this writing in The Refugee Project portal of the website soon. To check out more writing and artwork by refugee youth, please visit the website. With best wishes, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest winners! Our January Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #185 (provided by Molly Torinus, Stone Soup contributor), which challenged participants to write a story in which the protagonist explained COVID-19 to people in the distant past. What a way to begin the new year! Molly’s thoughtful prompt led to a surge of creativity; these stories took us on journeys to Ancient Egypt and Greece, invented time travel via carrier pigeon, and centered on ghostly interactions. We even received a play set during the end of the Black Death! While each and every story was a pleasure to read, we narrowed down our selections to the usual five winners and five honorable mentions. As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! Congratulations to our Winners and Honorable Mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “What Are You Talking About?” by Audrey Billington, 10 (Hillsboro, IL) “Dear Jane” by Finoula Breen-Ryan, 10 (Bridgeport, CT) “The Warning: A Play” by Nova Macknik-Conde, 10 (Brooklyn, NY) “Old Answers” by Daniel Shorten, 10 (Mallow, ROI) “The Ghost of You” by Eliya Wee, 11 (Menlo Park, CA) Honorable Mentions “Covid-19 Explained to Ancient Egyptians” by Poorvi Girish, 8 (Fremont, CA) “Royally Messed Up” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “Dear People of the Past” by Zayda Parakh, 12 (Chattanooga, TN) “COVID-19.63” by Divya Srinivasan, 12 (Sammamish, WA) “COVID Time Travel” by Savarna Yang, 13 (Outram, NZ) From Stone Soup January 2022 Spring Will Not Die By a group of Syrian refugees in Reyhanli, Turkey with the support of Karam House—Afnan, 15; Ahmad, 16; Fatima, 18; Hayam, 16; Mohammed A., 16; Mohammed, 16; Mustafa, 16; Nour Al Huda, 16; Rasha, 16; and Sedra, 15 Welcome to all our guests. Revolutions, and especially the revolutions in the Arab lands today, aren’t simple events that can be conveyed in a play of less than half an hour. The reality is the blood of the people. It’s not easy to fully portray their pain and suffering. This play may not be one-hundred percent accurate or an exact mirror of reality, but it seeks to present the way in which the demonstrations the youth brought to the streets were driven by their passion for freedom. Thank you for
Saturday Newsletter: December 18, 2021
Bridge in the Snow, Fujifilm X-T1 | Claire Lu, 13 (Portola Valley, CA), published in Stone Soup December 2021 A note from Sarah Happy weekend! I hope everyone is having a calm and restful December. If you haven’t had a chance to read Anya Geist’s Born on the First of Two, which was published on the first of this month, I want to direct you to the excerpt we published from the novel in our December issue (you can also scroll down to the end of this email to read it). We also have a lovely interview on our YouTube channel with Anya and Abhi Sukhdial, (which you can view above) where Abhi and Anya talk about character development, the worlds that Anya created in the novel, real-life inspiration, and so much more. If after watching the interview you find yourself hungry for more, there is a longer, more exclusive look inside Anya and her process writing Born on the First of Two that you can view, here. Coinciding with the interview, we have also launched a book page for Born on the First of Two that includes the interview as well as April Yu’s five star review of the novel. Keep visiting the page for other news—reviews, awards, events—regarding Anya and Born on the First of Two! Anya begins with a powerful prologue that draws the reader in by vividly describing a character’s troubling recurring dream. Without knowing any specifics about the plot, the reader learns of the dream (or is it perhaps a memory?) that plagues this character. As readers, we begin to wonder: what could this mean? Who are these dark figures? And why did her parents leave? This compelling beginning of Anya’s novel reminded me of a recent topic covered by William in one of his Saturday Workshops: origin stories. In William’s workshop, the young writers were challenged to imagine the beginnings of a character who might go on to do significant things. In the post summarizing the workshop, you can find examples from participating writers to serve as examples, if you need them. My challenge for you this weekend is to combine the dream concept from Born on the First of Two and the idea of origin stories. First, come up with a character’s life arc, from beginnings that could be considered quite modest, through a life that takes a surprising turn and challenges the expectations for this character’s trajectory. But crucially, have this character be followed by a memory or dream, whether faded or lucid, of an event that happened in the beginning of their life. How does this dream continue to haunt the character? And what does the dream reveal to the reader about the character’s beginnings? Perhaps it is a tragic dream or memory, as in the case of Born on the First of Two. Or maybe it is simply embarrassing– school children laughing at one of their peers. Think about what you want to convey about the character’s motivations and how an event can shape a person’s life. If you’re inspired to create anything based on this weekend writing activity, please consider submitting it to Stone Soup—we love to read your submissions. Until next time, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest winners! Our December Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #181 (provided by Molly Torinus, Stone Soup contributor), which challenged participants to write a creation story for a fictional world of their own imagination. For the third consecutive month we set a record for number of submissions, all of them worthy of recognition. Molly’s ingenious prompt led to a breadth of creativity, with creation stories for fully realized worlds containing mathematical sets with biblical influence to anthropomorphic clouds to a dance recital gone wrong. In the end, we selected our usual five winners and five honorable mentions. As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! Congratulations to our Winners and Honorable Mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “Darkness” by Kimberly Hu, 9 (Lake Oswego, OR) “Adventure to the Lost Kingdoms” by Tang Li, 9 (Palmetto Bay, FL) “The Beginning, the End, the Rebirth” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “The Fearful Cloud” by Julia Ma, 11 (Portland, OR) “The World of the Grand Staff” by Maya Mourshed, 10 (Silver Spring, MD) Honorable Mentions “One Dance” by Audrey Billington, 10 (Hillsboro, IL) “Math: The Origin” by Lucas Hinds, 13 (Lenoir City, TN) “The Creation of Warland” by Sophie Li, 11 (Palo Alto, CA) “Eternalia” by Brooke Negin, 11 (Kanata, ON, Canada) “The Fourth Dawn” by Divya Srinivasan, 12 (Sammamish, WA) Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Super reviewer April Yu, 13, couldn’t get enough of Anya Geist’s debut novel Born on the First of Two! Don’t miss the latest Book Club Report from Laura Moran, which details the group’s meeting with acclaimed author Lucy Worsley! Young Blogger Ismini Vasiloglou, 12, wrote a glowing review of Tristan Hui’s novel The Other Realm, which won the Stone Soup Book Contest 2020. From Stone Soup December 2021 An Excerpt from Born on the First of Two By Anya Geist, 14 (Worcester, MA) Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. The girl’s breathing was labored and fast, the way it always was when she had this dream, this memory. It was a strange dream; it seemed to linger in her mind, tickling its edges like light in her peripheral vision. She’d had it for as long as she could remember, but she never became quite used to it; every time it came to her in her sleep, she found herself unsettled. The sky was light blue, and the sun radiated its warmth down on the Earth. Birds chirped contentedly in verdant, leafy trees while bees hummed along as they flew from flower to flower, careful not to damage the soft, delicate petals. The girl—then just a baby—sat on the
Book Club Report: When Stars Are Scattered, Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
An update from our thirty-first Book Club meeting! On October 30th, the Stone Soup Book Club discussed When Stars Are Scattered, by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. When Stars Are Scattered is based on Omar’s life in Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and his journey to resettlement in the United States. The story is told in the form of a graphic novel. When Stars Are Scattered was an immensely popular read among our twelve book club participants, as was evident in our lively and dynamic Book Club discussion. Many participants remarked on how moving they found the book and how it compelled them to dig deeper and learn more about the plight of refugees. As a group we found it equally compelling how vividly the more mundane, everyday experience of life in a refugee camp was portrayed. We learned that Dadaab is such a big camp that it almost feels like a city-with makeshift restaurants and even internet cafes-but it is a city in limbo with no permanent structures. This sense of limbo was captured in the rhythm of Omar’s daily life-the monotony of chores and the weight of responsibility for his brother’s care, the angst over first whether to start school and later how to remain there, and the ebb and flow of friendships all helped to capture Dadaab as a place in flux. We spent time reflecting on what questions we would want to ask about life in a refugee camp and what we found most surprising, interesting, and confronting about Omar’s life. Following this discussion, we listened to an interview of a boy named Muzamill, about his daily life in Dadaab. The questions posed about Muzammil’s life were posed by young people in the United States. The interview was informative, eye opening, and funny! In parallel to our discussions about life as a refugee, we also spent time thinking about the graphic novel format and the various ways in which it enhanced Jamieson’s portrayal of Omar’s life story. Even those who’d never read a graphic novel before are now converts to the genre! We tried our hand at telling an aspect of our own daily routine in graphic novel format and shared these with the group. Remember: if you attended book club and liked what you wrote for this activity, submit it through the Writing Workshop Submission Form and we will post it along with other stories on the Stone Soup website! At the conclusion of our meeting, we had the chance to explore some of the creative works by young refugees through the Stone Soup Refugee Project. If you have not yet done so, check it out yourself, here. Finally, we are so excited to share that on, December 11th, our final Book Club meeting of this session, we will be joined by author and historian, Lucy Worsley, to discuss her book The Austen Girls! Please join us and come prepared with questions for Ms. Worsley!
Stone Soup Refugee Project – 2021
Dear friends and supporters of Stone Soup, As director of the Stone Soup Refugee Project, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks for your support of this innovative, empowering endeavor as well as of Stone Soup’s broad aim to provide a platform for creative young people across the globe. The Stone Soup Refugee Project was inspired by Sabrina Guo, a Stone Soup contributor, prolific writer and extraordinary activist, and the collaboration she pioneered with Another Kind of Girl Collective, a non-profit which provides an artistic outlet to displaced Syrian girls. Since the launch of the Refugee Project, we have partnered with seven organizations providing on-the-ground support to children living in refugee camps, and those resettled in host countries. Through these partnerships, we have collected over three-hundred pieces of artwork and writing by refugee youth. These creative works are currently on display in our newly created web portal for the project, which you can explore here: https://stonesoup.com/refugee-project/ Our vision for the project: “Will be the next day better.” A drawing by a Syrian refugee child of her idea of a good future. Over the course of the past year and half, we half successfully overcome the limits of the Covid-19 pandemic as we forged relationships, through the help of Zoom, with organizations serving refugee youth in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, as well as in Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece, and even along the Syrian refugee trail to Western Europe through the Balkans. In the next phase of the Refugee Project, as we continue to collect creative works by refugee youth for display on the Refugee Project portal of our website, we are also working to expand and deepen our collaboration with current Refugee Project contributors. Our central goal for these ongoing collaborations is to facilitate a substantive, ongoing engagement between our broad Stone Soup audience and the artists and creative works displayed through the Refugee Project. We hope to achieve this goal through several endeavors, including: 1) Delivering creative writing teaching content to young people in refugee camps and those resettled in host countries. This content will be developed by members of the Stone Soup team and designed to help young people to share aspects of their daily lives and experiences that they wish to share; and 2) To facilitate collaborative learning experiences, such as the exchange of creative writing and artwork, between our Stone Soup contributors from refugee backgrounds and our broader audience. As an example of this type of expanded collaboration, planning and logistic development is currently underway between myself and key stakeholders at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, for me to deliver a portion of my Anthropology of the Everyday summer camp (which I have taught over the past two summers) to young people living in Kakuma Refugee Camp. I will deliver this workshop initially through mobile phone exchange via Whatsap, and once Covid-19 protocols allow, through interactive video conference sessions. The initial delivery of this workshop is set for this coming September, after which we hope to facilitate a creative exchange of the writing and artwork produced by young people who took the workshop in Kakuma Camp, and those who signed up through Stone Soup. Afghan girl, age 10, in a Serbian refugee camp in Bogovadja. Support the Project: To make this vision a reality, we need your help. We have set ourselves a target goal of $10,000 to pilot the program. These funds will go towards the development of workshops delivered to young people in refugee camps, the facilitation of creative exchanges between young people, and the work of collecting and publishing more material on the Refugee Project website. In addition, funds will be used to support our Refugee Project contributing organizations and the young people they serve in the ways in which they deem valuable, such as purchase of supplies and possible scholarship funds. As we have said many times before, the media so often portrays refugee youth as the subject of a narrative. The Stone Soup Refugee Project provides a platform for these young people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. Please donate toward our goal and help us to empower these young people. Thank you for believing in us and our mission. Your continued support has made this project possible. Sincerely, Laura Moran Refugee Project Coordinator Donate to the Stone Soup Refugee Project Recent Work by Refugee Children Mixed media, paper mache using old exercise books, tissue paper, paint, glitter, pen Hala was in Greece for almost 3 years with her father and sister. Her mother was waiting for them patiently in Germany. She loved to draw more than anything. They were living in a squat when Love Without Borders met them and placed them in a house. They used art as a way to heal as well as to pay for basic necessities during their time in Greece. They were finally transferred to Germany to be reunited with the rest of her family. Now Hala is studying German and sends photos of his paintings from time to time, as well as leaving sweet voice messages in German. Khalid recalls: all his friends say something nice about him, that he helps people. He offers friends food, or anything they need. He jokes with his friends. Sometimes during the activity he forgets himself and starts to sing. He is a very natural, grounded personality, very instinctual. He does things without thinking. When asked about the painting, he said it is about nothing. He said, it means nothing. He said, black is for scariness, and red is for blood. Ezgi asked, is this a painting of a monster? The boy said, yes. Ezgi said, let’s talk with this monster. What you want to say to him? The boy said, I am not afraid of you. Ezgi said, what did the monster say to you?The boy said, the monster says, no, you are afraid of me. Answer him, Ezgi said.The boy said a loud, laughing voice, I am not afraid of you!
Saturday Newsletter: July 24, 2021
Spring, by Myra Nicolaou, 8 (Cyprus), and published in the May/June 1985 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William Hello again! I haven’t written our Saturday Newsletter for some months, as I have been writing a book about the history of bread. Thank you to my colleagues who have taken over during this time. I turn 68 on Thursday, which also brings us into the 49th year of Stone Soup. In 1972, I gathered a few fellow students at my college, and we set to work to teach ourselves how to be publishers. The first issue of Stone Soup was published in May, 1973. I must say, between the magazine, our blogs, and the work coming out of our writing classes, Stone Soup is publishing more creative work than it ever has—and this is attracting ever more brilliant young writers and artists. I am a writer. I write every day. I am in awe of the work Stone Soup is publishing. I encourage all of you to subscribe to the magazine so you can get copies of our important literary magazine, and gain access to our vast catalogue of writing on the Stone Soup website. Stone Soup Classes Our classes resume on September 18th. The fall session runs until December 3rd, with class readings scheduled for December 11th. Registration will open early August with my writing class, Conner Bassett’s, and a new class taught by Isidore Bethel, a French-American filmmaker who will teach students how to tell stories through film. All of our teachers practice what they teach. Both Conner and I are published authors. Isidore is a well respected filmmaker. Please check out his Wikipedia entry. We are in school expansion mode! We will be adding more classes as we find appropriate teachers. We will also be expanding the types of classes. Poetry, photography, long-form fiction, and book illustration are examples of classes that we are hoping to add to our listings. We also hope to offer classes to students in Asia. Refugee project Please check out our new Refugee Project web pages. A gift you can give to these young artists is to simply read their work and speak their names. We will be fundraising for this program in September, so check back then for more information. Right now, you can help by looking at the current material. COVID-19 broke the momentum that Laura Moran, who runs this program, had built. Our Refugee Project web pages have all been approved by the agencies currently featured. Laura put in a ton of work on getting approvals and managing requested revisions. Thank you, Laura. Weekend Project The magnificent painting from Cyprus was part of a group of paintings given to us in 1977 by the Cypriot embassy, in Washington, D.C. For me, this work captures the exuberance of spring. Art and writing projects based on seasons are often one of the dullest of school projects. I want you to put all uninspiring back to school projects out of your head. One of the most famous musical pieces of all time is a set of four violin concertos by the Baroque composer Vivaldi, which he published in 1725 under the name, Le quattro stagioni, or “The Four Seasons” in English. Here is a link to a YouTube recording of the spring concerto. The many sunflowers paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh are representations of summer. Most of his sunflower paintings—and he made a lot of them!—are of sunflowers in a vase. These can be thought of as summer brought into the house. A vase filled with hollies with their red berries would be a comparable image for winter. The painting he made of a sunflower growing in a communal garden in July, 1887 is another approach to memorializing a season. This painting could only be made in the summer, when sunflowers bloom. Depending on where you live, thunderstorms might also suggest summer. As we are at the height of summer, I want you to think of something that screams “Summer!” where you live, and then capture that idea in a drawing, painting, photograph, or in a story or poem. If you are currently working on a piece of fiction, then if appropriate, you could work something in that might anchor your story in the summer. As always, if you like what you produce and think that our Editor, Emma Wood, would be interested in publishing it in Stone Soup, please go to our website and submit it. Thank you. Lastly, please read the poem, “The Memorial Tree,” by Amber Zhao, which was published in the February 2021 Issue of Stone Soup. This is an unusual, evocative, and complex poem. Congratulations, Amber! As COVID-19 surges again, please, please, please stay safe. Until next time, Book Contest 2021 For information on submitting to the Stone Soup Book Contest 2021, please click here. To submit your manuscript, please visit our submittable site. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Emily Collins, 12, wrote a staggering, evocative story about desire for change in the face of the ongoing aftermath of COVID-19. Jaslyn Kwan, 12, wrote a personal narrative about her return to competitive ballet in the YAGP (Youth America Grand Prix). Make sure to read Pragnya’s (12) review of Laurie R. King’s 1994 novel, The Beekeepers Apprentice, the first novel in her Mary Russell series. Meleah Goldman, 10, wrote a lyrical and inspirational work, “The Roots of Our Peace.” April, 13, reviewed Jenna Evans Welch’s sweet, debut novel, Love and Gelato. Calling all 9-14-year-olds to Virtual Summer Camp! It’s not too late to join our summer classes with Young Inklings–we have a few spaces left in all our July classes. Each interactive writing camp runs for two hours per day, Monday through Thursday, with plenty of prompts and activities for you to take away and use outside class, too. Have fun writing and learning with us this month! July 26-29 – learn from two generations who have started journals before
Saturday Newsletter: July 10, 2021
Ember Cube (oil pastel) by Cyrus Kummer, 10 (St. Louis, MO) and published in the July/August 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Ryan A Little Bit About Me Since this is my first newsletter as the editorial intern for Stone Soup’s Editor-in-Chief Emma Wood, I wanted to take a moment to briefly introduce myself. I’m a rising junior at the University of Richmond, where I’m double-majoring in Journalism and Leadership Studies. I currently reside in my hometown of Chicago, a few blocks away from the mailbox where I submitted my first Stone Soup story, which appeared on the “Honor Roll” of the September/October 2016 issue. Aside from being a passionate writer and avid reader, I enjoy running in my neighborhood, playing soccer, and going on walks with my friends and parents. Writing Activity Now that the Fourth of July has come and gone, we find ourselves immersed in the middle of the summer. Characterized by its longer days and warmer nights, this stretch of the year is effectively captured by Cyrus Kummer’s pastel drawing Ember Cube—its vibrant orange tones evoke the sweltering heat of summer. There is something comforting about the heat, enveloping you in a warm hug the second you step out your front door. As you head out, I urge you to grab the latest edition of Stone Soup and flip the pages to the first few chapters of The Other Realm by Tristan Hui, the 2020 winner of the Book Contest. The novel, which chronicles two friends battling familial conflict and discovering the meaning of home, engages readers from the beginning with descriptive details of the rooms within their respective homes. This week, I invite you to write about your favorite place, whether it be a room in your home, a store in your town, or a family-favorite vacation spot, and capture the small details in the environment. Think about the sounds in the location—can you hear a whisper of voices nearby or the cars rumbling past? Notice if there are any specific aspects within the place that you wouldn’t find elsewhere—is there paint missing on the walls from hanging photographs or are there rings on the coffee table left behind by mugs filled with warm beverages? Write down everything you observe there. You can use your written description to fill in the setting for a longer story or novel, or it can stand on its own as a brief vignette or poem. Till next time, Book Contest 2021 For information on submitting to the Stone Soup Book Contest 2021, please click here. To submit your manuscript, please visit our submittable site. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Ismini, 12, wrote a glowing five-star review of V.E. Schwab’s 2020 historical fantasy novel The Invisible Life of Addie Larue. Make sure to read April’s (13) review of Marissa Meyer’s 2016 novel, Heartless, a speculative prequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Priscilla, 8, wrote about her experience seeing Machu Picchu viscachas for the first time. Anirudh, 13, wrote a brilliant and fastidious essay on the history of socialism from the Age of Reason to the Cold War Calling all 9-14-year-olds to Virtual Summer Camp! It’s not too late to join our summer classes with Young Inklings–we have a few spaces left in all our July classes. Each interactive writing camp runs for two hours per day, Monday through Thursday, with plenty of prompts and activities for you to take away and use outside class, too. Have fun writing and learning with us this month! July 12-15 (starting this Monday!) – join our founder and original teacher William for his Playwriting class July 19-22 – practice creative Food Writing with Jane (grab a lemon and click the image on the right to try a sample activity) July 26-29 – learn from two generations who have started journals before in Start Your Own Literary Journal – with Stone Soup ’20—21 intern Anya & Jane July 26-29 – get a new perspective on Creative Writing Through Art with Jiang From Stone Soup July/August 2021 from The Other Realm By Tristan Hui, 15 (Menlo Park, CA) Illustrated by Rosemary Brandon, 10 (Nashville, TN) Chapter One Continued All About the Two Realms introduced the concept that there was more than one realm in existence, that there was another realm below the one in which Montero sprawled, made up of people similar to humans but not entirely the same. This was possibly the detail that sank the idea—no one in Montero was ready to welcome an alien race to their city. According to Dr. Colton, if you believed in both realms, it was possible to travel between them when a black moon coincided with a low tide—and in the lower realm, it was common knowledge that the upper one existed. Dr. Arnold Colton and his book were banned from Montero and the surrounding region almost immediately after its release, the publishers pulled out of their contract with the city’s library, and most anyone who had previously been fascinated by this new worldview stowed the book hastily somewhere dark and never spoke of their infatuation with it again—but Henry Morroe felt no shame in taking instruction from a banned book, and neither did his daughter. It was said that this realm held an island that provided the perfect star-charting vantage point, with spectacular views of a few planets not yet known to the people of Montero. The sleek black rock rose up out of the water and gave way quickly to dense forest—not a grain of sand to be found, despite the vast desert that stretched out across the strait. Apparently, this enclave was no tropical vacation spot but the trade capital of the realm and abuzz with all nature of activities. People of all shapes and sizes flocked to the isle to sell a variety of colorful, extraordinary goods, and many of them liked it so much that they simply stayed. The capital city
