Anya Geist, 12 (Worcester, MA)
Published in Stone Soup September 2019
A note from William Rubel
Congratulations to all the winners in our book contest!
We are excited this week to announce the winners of Stone Soup’s first annual book contest, and we can’t wait to share their work with you in 2020.
First Place
Three Days Till EOC by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, 11 (Novel)
Second Place (joint)
The Golden Elephant by Analise Braddock, 8 (Poetry)
Searching for Bow and Arrows by Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, 11 (Poetry)
Third Place
Elana by Hannah Nami Gajcowski, 9 (Novel)
Honorable Mention
Leather Journal, Abhainn Bajus, 14 (Poetry)
The Hidden Key, Peri Gordon, 9 (Novel)
Frozen Nocturne, Sabrina Guo, 13 (Poetry)
The Demisers, Zoe Keith, 11 (Novel)
Last Birthday Boy, Olivia Ladell, 13 (Novel)
Family of Spies, Micah Lim, 10 (Novel)
Escape the War, Priyanka Nambiar, 13 (Novel)
A Brief Encounter with Chaos, Anyi Sharma, 11 (Stories)
Congratulations to our worthy winners, and well done to everyone who entered. We have been amazed and delighted by the quality and quantity of long-form work our contributors are producing and want to make this contest an annual feature. Meanwhile, we are getting to work on the publishing process with our 2019 winners. We will let you all know when you will be able to read them!
Last weekend I had a surprise visit from one of our recent contributors! Tristan Hui, who wrote “Coconut Pudding,” this week’s featured story from our September 2019 issue, couldn’t resist taking a look at the Stone Soup offices on a trip to Santa Cruz, California.
I think she and her father were probably quite surprised to see just how “virtual” the Stone Soup office really is (and, perhaps, how messy my house is—but that’s another story!). We moved out of our formal office space two years ago, and all of us work on the magazine from home or wherever we happen to be traveling to (which ranges from London to Vancouver to Santa Cruz!). With the magic of technology, we can work anywhere and “meet” by phone and video.
But it was really nice to meet one of our recent writers in person. Thanks for dropping by, Tristan!
Until next time,
Highlights from the past week online
Don't miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com!
On Monday we published Lauren's moving story "The Cold Winter," on the blog. Read what happens when a teacher at the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota reaches out to her college alumni group to explain that the power company has turned off the heat in her students' homes.
We published part 2 of Himank's guide to playing Kabaddi. In this blog post, learn more about the different ways to score, the different roles of players, and the warning card system.
Lastly, we shared a poem from 1993 entitled "Amazon" on our Twitter and Facebook this week, unfortunately still timely and worth a read.
From Stone Soup, September 2019
Coconut Pudding
By Tristan Hui, 12 (Menlo Park, CA)
Illustrated by Anya Geist, 12 (Worcester, MA)
I used to be Grandma’s favorite. She told me it was because when I was born, she was the first to hold me. “No one can replace you, Thu,” she would say, taking me onto her lap and stroking my dark hair. “No one.”
Bao, my older brother, was Grandpa’s favorite. Grandpa’s life had been centered around him, and sometimes it seemed like I was Grandma’s only cháu trai, her only grandson. I loved it.
One humid June day, the gentle waves rocked our house as I docked the sampan boat and skipped inside.
“I’m home from school!”
“Good!” Grandma was sitting in the rocking chair, repairing a fishing net. “Thu, come 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.
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