A note from Jane
This week we had the joyful task of judging our first weekly Flash Contest, based on the Daily Creativity prompt posted on Monday, March 30! The challenge was:
We were delighted by how many of you sent us your work! Congratulations to every single one of you for responding so creatively, and for sending us your dialogues. We enjoyed reading each and every one of the entries, and it wasn’t easy to pick a selection of five as this week’s winners. Join us in congratulating them! In alphabetical order:
Eliana Aschheim, 13, Santa Clara, CA
Liam Hancock, 12, Danville, CA
Gabe Horowitz, 10, Bethesda, MD
Matthew-Seungho Jeong, 13, Houston, TX
Kat Werth, 10, Bethesda, MD
Their work is now published on our website, and you can read it here.
Visit this page to pick up the Daily Creativity prompts every weekday.
And—we’re excited to say that next week, one of our readers, Molly Torinus, is staging a Daily Creativity Takeover! All the writing prompts from Monday through to Friday will be set by Molly—and I can tell you, she’s come up with some really good ones. You are in for a treat!
This past week we have also been posting lots of new content focused on your experiences during this strange period of being out of school and on lockdown. You have been sending us poems, journal entries, personal narratives, and more, and we will carry on posting them day by day. Thank you to all of you for writing about your thoughts and feelings, and for sharing them with us. There have been some great comments on the website too—so, blog authors, do check out your work after it’s been published and see what people have been saying!
The most colorful post this week was the drawing at the top of this newsletter, by 11-year-old Sloka Ganne. (Avid readers may recognize her name from the January 2018 and February 2019 magazines’ cover art.) Sloka told us that she wanted to make a piece of art about how countries across the world are separating from one another in order to protect themselves. I really love the way she has used a face mask as such a powerful symbol of so many different aspects of her theme. The mask protects, but it also makes a huge barrier between people; it is a sail that is helping the people to escape, but it also looks as if it is hard to hold on to and might just blow away. What other symbols of this time might you be able to develop into a piece of art—something that talks about what is happening in your own world, or the wider world?
We hope you are making the most of all our additional activities during this time. (See the reminder in the section below.) Staying creative is part of staying safe and well!
Until next week,
Keeping you creative during COVID-19 Lockdown
The following is your quick reference guide to all the new resources we are publishing to help keep you creative during this strange time across the world.
Daily Creativity: new creativity prompt every weekday morning, with a constantly building archive of prompts for you to refer back to.
COVID-19 Blog: new material from our young bloggers and artists reflecting on current events and their experiences of the global pandemic.
Weekly Flash Contest: a new flash contest every week, based on Monday’s Daily Creativity prompt. Winners’ work published at Stonesoup.com.
Weekly Writing Workshop: a writing group for Stone Soup subscribers and contributors that meets via Zoom one hour every Friday at 1 p.m. PST to write together and read your work aloud to your peers. Contributions published at Stonesoup.com.
Summer Book Contest: contest launch brought forward; closing date now August 2020.
Book Club: starting next week (Wednesdays at 1 p.m. PST). Details will be sent to subscribers on Monday.
To make sure you are kept up to date with all of the extra resources we are providing during this time, please sign up for the Creativity Prompts mailing list. All you have to do to get on the list is click the link. Share with your friends, and please leave us a comment on our website and at Facebook if you like what we’re doing!
Highlights from the past week online
Don't miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com!
Lots of art and writing related to the COVID-19 pandemic on the blog this week—
The drawing we posted on the blog by Sloka Ganne, 11, is the header image for the newsletter today. What does the illustration mean to you? Leave a comment on the post here with your thoughts.
A photograph by Grace Williams, 13, called Gateway to Darkness, encapsulates her thoughts on the pandemic. Check out the striking black-and-white photograph she took on her walk, and her thoughts on how it relates to the pandemic.
Cali Bennett, 11, wrote a poem about how she feels about COVID-19. Cali uses a powerful comparison to the intensity of cold ocean water to describe how she feels.
The week on the blog ended with another poem by Chloe Deyo, 11. Virus reflects on the fear surrounding COVID-19, and asks when our hope will return.
We also posted some of the work from last week’s writing workshop to our blog. In just one hour, participants came up with such interesting, varied work using the list of words we came up with. Read their pieces, and consider participating in next week’s workshop!
From Stone Soup April 2020
A Birthday Surprise
By Bo-Violet Vig, 13 (Los Angeles, CA)
Illustrated by Oskar Cross, 10 (Oakland, CA)
I wake up to silence.
No usual sounds of Dad clattering around in the kitchen, or Lucas hammering on the piano, or Maggie screaming at Mom because she doesn’t want to take Pickles out for a walk.
I swipe at my eyes, roll over to check the neon-pink digital clock that sits on my bedside table. Blinking lights form the numbers—it’s 7:04 a.m. That’s a little weird. Usually everyone is awake by now, but I guess they’re all extra tired today. I mean, Mom did force us all to stay up watching classic musicals until 11:30 last night, which I guess is late for Lucas, but on a day like this he’d surely be awake by 6:00 at the latest, scampering around and snickering at Maggie whenever she hisses at him to pipe down. Our family gets pretty excited about birthdays.
I sink back against my pillow, letting my eyes close. In my mind, I can see the usual pink and blue streamers—my favorite colors—and Maggie, teetering on a chair, stringing them across the mantle; Dad in the kitchen, arranging lemon-glazed donuts on a platter in the shape of a star; Mom tying a flawless bow on each of my perfectly wrapped gifts behind a locked laundry-room door; Lucas attempting to set the table with bright-yellow paper plates while playing a raucous game of tug-of-war with Pickles . . . /MORE
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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