We’re thrilled to announce the results of this year’s Stone Soup Annual Book Contest. It was a pleasure and an honor to read and consider all the manuscripts as well as incredibly difficult to select our two winners. We are excited to share more about the authors and their books in the coming months—stay tuned! Winners Poetry An Archeology of the Future, Emma Catherine Hoff, 10 Fiction The Handkerchief Woman, Lily Jessen, 14 Finalists Poetry REALITY IS HERE FOR YOU, Analise Braddock, 11 Imagination, Bethel Daniel, 12…
Search Results for: winter
Snowflakes Are Actually Heavy
Two girls build a snowman One winter day, Emily and Mary went out to play. Mary said, “We could make a snowman!” Emily agreed. Squish splat crunch as they walked through the snow. The spheres were simple. Emily pointed out, “Are you sure we could carry the head?” Snow Stream Mary said, “A snowflake is light. We could carry a lot of them.” As they tried to carry it, Mary said angrily, “This is as heavy as a bear! We…
The Smell of Spring
As I peered out the window, the indigo sky, the snow on the ground that fell long ago, surrounded by white, no hint of sunlight, I sighed as I looked and climbed into bed, I woke in the morning, feeling fresh and well fed, I opened the window, and to my surprise, something was different, I could not tell why. Taking a sniff of the cold winter air, I felt a warm little breeze, full of summer and bees, fly…
The Story of the Puddle and the Frog
A puddle who yearns to see the ocean beseeches a frog to tell him all about it There was once a river. For years, this river had flowed gently all the way from the top of a great mountain down into a forest, where it joined up with tributaries and eventually ran into the sea. Until, that is, it stopped. The river had been blocked up with sticks and stones at the place where it ran out of the forest…
Trapped
Stuck on a ride at an indoor water park, the narrator panics “Fine! Let’s just get it over with.” I let out a sigh as I listlessly dragged my body toward the slide. It was a cold, unforgiving winter day five years ago. My sister, two friends, and I were at an indoor water park at Great Wolf’s Lodge somewhere in Pennsylvania, voting on which slide should end our little adventure. I had voted against a daunting and unnerving slide…
Saturday Newsletter: October 1, 2022
Fire Eater (Nikon d3500) by Aaron D’Souza, 9; published in Stone Soup February 2022 A note from Caleb Greetings from Houston! The last time I wrote to you all I was still living in Santa Cruz, California, where Stone Soup got its start. I have since moved to Houston to pursue an MFA in fiction writing and, six months in, I couldn’t be happier with the program. This week I have the pleasure of talking about the blog which, since late summer…
Writing Workshop #68: Sense of Place
An update from our sixty-eighth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, September 17, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, we covered the idea of ‘sense of place.’ The students learned that sense of place is a literary device that not only evokes physical, objective descriptions, but also uses vivid imagery to capture the thoughts and feelings of a character about a certain place. We studied numerous example of sense of place within…
Saturday Newsletter: September 24, 2022
I (acrylic on cardstock) by Ava Shorten, 12; published in Stone Soup September 2022 A note from Laura Autumn greetings! I hope everyone is settling into the school year and finding some time for creative expression as the colors begin to change and the air turns crisp-at least that’s the scoop where I live in New England. The students at Angelina Jolie primary school in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, are nearing the end of winter and the second dry season…
Sisters
One freezing winter day, Marie finds a sickly kitten on the street The wind stung Marie’s cheek. She shivered, despite her warm jacket and hat. “I knew I should have brought a scarf,” she said out loud, but there was no one but the wind and her dog, Kora, to answer. It was the time of winter where people stopped being happy at the cold and the snow and instead stayed inside. All except the people who had dogs. Marie—though…
Sunset
An idyllic evening on a lake sparks newfound clarity in the narrator Grass enclosed my feet with every step I took. The sky was pigmented blue, newer than my eyes had ever seen before. The paddleboard meandered with me to the sweet, blue lake, so unblemished that, for moments at a time, I could catch sight of my future in it. The sun glistened on my back. The humid summer air engulfed my being with its touch. Life was leading…
