Saturday Newsletter: March 12, 2022

A note from Caleb

Happy Saturday!

I'd like to begin by congratulating Abhi Sukhdial—Stone Soup contributor and winner of our 2019 Book Contest—whose novella Three Days Till EOC was recognized by the 2021-2022 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in the novel writing category. As per the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, "This year the Scholastic Awards received nearly 260,000 entries nationally; 20,000 entries were from the Remote Programs alone! In the Remote Programs, only 9 percent of all works received a Silver Key. And only 12 percent of all works submitted to our Remote Programs received an Honorable Mention. Receiving a Silver Key or Honorable Mention is an incredible achievement."

Weekly Writing Workshops
There are two of  (William Rubel's) and three of (Conner Bassett's) classes left in the Winter session. The Spring program begins after Easter. If you would like a free trial in one of the remaining classes this session, please send an email to tayleigh@stonesoup.com. Below, you can find a video of one our students—Zar, 11—delivering an incredible reading during the February 12th Workshop on Parables & Paradoxes.

Summer School Registration
On top of the inimitable Naomi Kinsman's Design a Novel weekend workshop, which takes place Saturday March 26 and Sunday March 27 from 1-4 pm eastern time, you can now begin registering for the Young Author's Studio Summer Camps offered by the Society of Young Inklings! A few members of the Stone Soup team—Book Club Facilitator Maya Mahony, Refugee Project Coordinator Laura Moran, and myself—are all offering classes. Maya's class on Identity and Imagination takes place July 25-28 at 1-3 pm pacific time, Laura's class on the Anthropology of the Everyday on June 13-16 at 9 am pacific, and my class on Literature in Miniature on June 27-30 at 9 am pacific. More classes will go live as we get closer to summer, so make sure to look out for updates!

This week, I'd once again like to direct your attention to the Stone Soup blog, though this time my focus is on our fabulous COVID blog that we began way back in 2020. The purpose of this blog is twofold; it's primary purpose is to allow children to filter their complex feelings about the pandemic through art, but it also acts as a sort of ongoing time capsule with which to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jane Wheeler, 13, writes of her beautiful piece Girl with Daisies, "We have all used different styles of face masks throughout covid to keep ourselves and others safe. This art represents the way we can find beauty even when covering up part of ourselves." And Graham, 12, writes of his stunning poem "Life in the Time of COVID-19," "Because of my mom’s job, I was living in Peru when COVID-19 started. The country locked down because of COVID. I couldn’t leave my apartment for forty-eight days. It was really hard. Things deteriorated in Peru and we had to be evacuated back to the United States. I returned home to Montana where there was no lockdown and I could finally go for a walk and be outside. My poem tells this story in half acrostic form and half free verse to help show the isolation and then freedom."

Both Jane and Graham turned to art in order to represent their unique perspectives, and in completely different forms. This weekend, I'd like you to think deeply about the pandemic and how it is affecting you most in its current form. Then, think about how you might capture this unique moment in time through your art. Like Graham altered the form of his poem in order to express the nature of its content, try and come up with an art form that mirrors your feelings about COVID. For example, if your experience with the pandemic is too difficult to express in the second dimension, create a sculpture or some other form of three-dimensional art. Be creative, think outside the box, and if you like what you write, please submit it to the COVID blog for consideration.

Until next time,