Weekly Flash Contest #2: How has COVID-19 affected your daily life so far? What has changed, and what is still the same? Which changes are positive, and which negative? What makes you most anxious when thinking about it? Most hopeful? Is there a particular experience that represents the change to your life most clearly? Write a 300-500-word blog post exploring these questions and examining your experiences so far. Every week during the COVID-19-related school closures and shelter-in-place arrangements we are…
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Daily Creativity #6 | Flash Contest: Write a Story in Dialogue
Write a story told completely through dialogue. How do you communicate the differences between characters? How can you make sure that the reader knows what is going on? Can you make action part of natural-sounding speech? This Daily Creativity prompt is also our first Weekly Flash Contest! We’d love to read your responses to this prompt, so if you are happy with what you write, submit it here by midnight on Friday April 3, 2020, for a chance to get published…
Saturday Newsletter: March 28, 2020
Mountains with Trees (oil pastels)Enoch Farnham, 12 (Edmond, OK), published in Stone Soup, March 2020 A note from Jane Pandemics are not something new. Sheltering in place, which many of us are doing by not going out of our houses except to get exercise or food, is also an ancient human practice. The great British scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) spent two extended periods between the summer of 1665 and the spring of 1667 holed up in the countryside at Woolsthorpe….
Saturday Newsletter: January 11, 2020
Pond, Tomb of Rekhmire, approximately 3,300 years ago, Egypt. A note from William Rubel Last week, editor Emma Wood wrote about a painting by “outsider” artist Morris Hirshfield. If you missed that newsletter, please read it here. Emma wrote about the artist’s evocative and yet not exactly realistic way of depicting scenes. Keeping with this theme, this week I would like to offer you this painting of a pond with people and trees that was painted on a wall in…
Saturday Newsletter: October 19, 2019
Lady in Red by Alexa Zhang, 9 (Los Altos, CA) illustrating “Windsong” by Emma McKinny, 13 (Old Fort, NC) Published in Stone Soup October 2019 A note from William Rubel I had written my letter to you for the week in the lobby of a Tokyo hotel where Jane Levi (you know her as one of our Newsletter writers) and I were finishing breakfast and waiting to leave to take our flight back to San Francisco. I had wanted…
Saturday Newsletter: August 24, 2019
“Class, I would like you to meet Kenta.” Illustrator Gordon Su, 13, for “Conrad and Fate” by Nate Sheehan, 12. Published January/February 2015. A note from William Welcome back to school! If you are like my daughter, then you’ve just finished one of those incredibly long (and yet at the same time incredibly short) summer vacations. At the start, it seems you’ve got ages—and what a relief to not have school! By the end, it flew by, but even so school…
Hello Neighbor: Missing Pieces, Reviewed by Abhi Sukhdial, 11
Hello Neighbor: Missing Pieces by Carly Anne West is a very unique kind of book. It’s because the book is based on a video game called “Hello Neighbor.” I didn’t know much about the video game at the time, but I knew the video game was very successful. So when I saw this book at my school book fair, I thought I should give it a try. I don’t regret my decision either. Missing Pieces is one of the best…
Summer Math Camp
Illustration by Megan M. Gannett, 13, from her story Swaying in the Breeze, published in our December 2016 issue I jumped out of the car and closed the door behind me. I ran up the sidewalk towards the house where math camp was being held. A few other kids were also arriving then and I followed them into the house. I left my shoes with everyone else’s, by the door, and went inside. I sat down on the carpet where…
Saturday Newsletter: July 13, 2019
““Do you still love dolphins?” he asked, shoving a ten across the counter.” Illustrator Celeste Kelly, 13, for “Pennsylvania” by Grace McNamee, 13 Published July/August 2007. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Good morning! Today I want to talk about writing with others. Writing doesn’t necessarily have to be a solitary activity. In fact, it’s very common for screenwriters, who write the scripts for movies, to work with a writing partner. But even with more traditional short stories, either written down…
Saturday Newsletter: June 22, 2019
Girls outside one of the classrooms at Remot School, Westgate, Samburu District, Kenya, April 2019. A note from William Rubel Summer birthdays . . . Getting older is a very strange process. My daughter, Stella, is turning 13 in a few weeks. I will be turning 67 a few days later. In many ways we are both experiencing changes in our bodies and in the way we think that are noticeably profound. For myself, I have known for years and…
