Spring, by Myra Nicolaou, 8 (Cyprus), and published in the May/June 1985 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William Hello again! I haven’t written our Saturday Newsletter for some months, as I have been writing a book about the history of bread. Thank you to my colleagues who have taken over during this time. I turn 68 on Thursday, which also brings us into the 49th year of Stone Soup. In 1972, I gathered a few fellow students at my college,…
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Saturday Newsletter: July 10, 2021
Ember Cube (oil pastel) by Cyrus Kummer, 10 (St. Louis, MO) and published in the July/August 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Ryan A Little Bit About Me Since this is my first newsletter as the editorial intern for Stone Soup’s Editor-in-Chief Emma Wood, I wanted to take a moment to briefly introduce myself. I’m a rising junior at the University of Richmond, where I’m double-majoring in Journalism and Leadership Studies. I currently reside in my hometown of…
Socialism Reexplained: Age of Reason to Cold War
Anirudh Parthasarathy, 13 (San Jose, CA) Socialism Reexplained: Age of Reason to Cold War Anirudh Parthasarathy, 13 History of Socialism In order to understand socialism as a whole, we have to understand how nineteenth century capitalism worked, the critiques of uncontrolled capitalism, and the reasoning behind the call for a more equitable economic system that eventually led to the birth of both socialism and communism. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, feudalism and absolute monarchism were abolished with people wanting…
Book Club Report: The Jumbies, Tracey Baptiste
An update from our twenty-eighth Book Club meeting! On June 26, the Stone Soup Book Club met for its last meeting in this session. We discussed The Jumbies, by Tracey Baptiste, a book about Caribbean folklore and a girl named Corinne who must save her home from the evil jumbies. After our usual ARTT rooms, where our participants were given the prompt of talking about what books they planned to read over the summer, we had a whole group discussion…
Flash Contest #32, June 2021: Write a first person story based on a grandparent’s/older friend’s memory—our winners and their work
Our June Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #156, provided by sagacious ’20—21 Intern Sage Millen, challenging participants to interview a grandparent/older friend about a memorable moment from their childhood and to write that memory as a first person story. This clever prompt afforded those who participated with the opportunity to get closer to the elderly than ever before, allowing them to literally inhabit the perspective of their interviewee. These submissions followed no similar narrative arc, though each and…
Book Club Report: Look Both Ways, Jason Reynolds
An update from our twenty-seventh Book Club meeting! On May 29, the Stone Soup Book Club discussed Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds. Look Both Ways contains several short stories about what happens to kids on their walk home from school, and offers a variety of perspectives on life. As usual, we started off our meeting by breaking into ARTT rooms. Each room had three or four people in it, and they could talk…
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #5: The Poetic Turn
An update from our fifth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 15, plus some of the output published below “The turn is the most important literary effect since Homer wrote his epics… It is the dramatic and climactic center, the place where the intellectual or emotional release first becomes clear and possible.” -T.S. Eliot “If there is no turn, no transformative moment, then the poem is a journal entry, at best a laundry list of reflections…
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #4: Dialogue
An update from the fourth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 8, plus some of the output published below This week’s workshop on dialogue was led by the inimitable duo of Stone Soup ’20-21 Intern Anya Geist, 14, and Stone Soup contributor Madeline Nohrnberg, 14. The workshop began with a warm up activity challenging participants to write a scene of dialogue between two characters who hate each other talking about the weather,…
Flash Contest #31, May 2021: Write a story based on a terrible book title—our winners and their work
Our May Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #151, provided by the brilliant Molly Torinus, challenging participants to come up with five “terrible” book titles and write a story based on one of them. What followed was an avalanche of submissions boasting the most creative, eye-catching titles many of us had ever seen. Of course, the exemplary work that followed the titles broke the moniker of “terrible,” and provided us with a lifetime supply of imagination as no one…
Saturday Newsletter: May 1, 2021
“Hat Girl” (Acrylic) by Keira Callahan, 12 (San Francisco, CA) and published in the May 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Sarah Have you had time to read the May issue of Stone Soup? I want to draw your attention to a story that caught my eye: “Awaiting a Letter” by Lila C. Kassouf, excerpted at the end of the newsletter. Though Lila doesn’t identify the time period in which “Awaiting a Letter” is set, there is something…
