A note from Caleb
Fall 2021 Workshop Reading
Don't forget: Saturday December 11, at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern, we will be hosting our end of term event in which our students read aloud some of the incredible work they’ve written this fall. Please come and support our students by signing up, here!
Book Club
Also on Saturday December 11, but at 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern (the event will end before we begin the workshop reading), Book Club will be hosting Lucy Worsley, author of The Austen Girls. Don’t miss out on a terrific opportunity to speak with a published author, and sign up, here!
Happy December! Start the month off right by curling up with Anya Geist’s new book Born on the First of Two (you can read an excerpt here), now available for purchase in the Stone Soup store.
I’m so excited to share with you the most recent development of another Stone Soup author, Abhi Sukhdial, whose timely novel Three Days Till EOC was the winner of our 2019 Book Contest. After Three Days Till EOC was honored by the Green Earth Book Awards, Abhi made a video in which he speaks passionately and candidly about the need for climate action, celebrates the impact of Stone Soup Magazine, encourages everyone to write from the heart, and promotes and reads from his novel Three Days Till EOC. As Abhi feels that finding Stone Soup was like finding “heaven,” we too could not feel more blessed to have worked with Abhi since he first began submitting to us as a fourth-grader, and we can’t wait to see what he accomplishes in the future. Congratulations, Abhi!
Now, I’d like to draw your attention to a couple of outstanding works of art from the December issue: Elodie Weinzierl’s Winter Wonderland, the issue’s cover image, and Sean Tenzin O’Connor’s “A Beautiful Wood.” Winter Wonderland is the perfect photograph to represent the December issue, as it features a snowy tree arched over a white hammock, inviting Stone Soup’s readers to relax amidst the wintery landscape of the issue’s content. “A Beautiful Wood,” meanwhile, is an ingenious representation of the December issue’s wintery landscape. In “A Beautiful Wood,” Sean—just five years old—leads us on a journey that ends “at the bottom,” in a place that “may seem that it’s not cold,” where the poem’s central image is revealed: “A Chord of Pine Trees in the Night.” The poem reminds me of Wallace Stevens’s “The Snow Man,” mainly in that I believe one must have “a mind of winter” to follow the thread of the poem and truly see with their own eyes the “Chord of Pine Trees in the Night” rather than just imagine them.
So, this weekend I’d like you to create an artwork that celebrates the themes of winter as you understand them. This may be more of a literal interpretation, as in Elodie’s photograph, or it may be more figurative, as in Sean’s poem. Regardless, the artwork should embody winter. Try reading “The Snow Man” for further inspiration. 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!
Till next time,
Other News
Book Club
On Saturday December 11, at 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern, Book Club will be hosting Lucy Worsley, author of The Austen Girls. Don't miss out on a terrific opportunity to speak with a published author and sign up, here!
Fall 2021 Workshop Reading
Also on Saturday December 11, at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern, we will be hosting our end of term event in which our students read aloud some of the incredible work they've written this fall. Please come and support our students by signing up, here!
Highlights from the past week online
Eleanor Dagan, 13, wrote a powerful poem about how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped long-standing traditions.
From Stone Soup
December 2021
A Beautiful Wood
By Sean Tenzin O'Connor, 5 (Bishop, CA)
In the light of the lamp
Many rocks
Sitting aside
Resting in place
In the dark
The shadows cast
Lights and lamps
Throughout the night
Hanging down
Towards the book
The poems written
With many hooks
Continue reading "A Beautiful Wood" 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.
Leave a Reply