Write a backstory for a supporting character from a novel you’ve read.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: November 19, 2022
Lighthouse in the Rain (iPhone 8, Lightleap) by Tatum Lovely, 12; published in Stone Soup November 2022 A note from Laura Moran Dear Friends, As William mentioned last week, with the end of the year upon us, we at Stone Soup, are turning our attention to the annual fundraising drive. This year is a very special one as we mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of Stone Soup! This is cause for both celebration and determination. We celebrate the monumental achievement of showcasing and inspiring the vast literary and artistic talents of young people across the globe for fifty years and counting. In marking this moment though, we, at Stone Soup, must also focus on our determination to ensure another fifty years of this important work. Hence, this moment is a call to action as we turn to you, our Stone Soup supporters and donors, to help us reach our fundraising goal of $125,000. This money is pivotal to upholding the crucial platform Stone Soup provides for developing young writers and artists. A prominent element of Stone Soup, and one that is close to my heart, is The Stone Soup Refugee Project. The core goal of the Refugee Project is to extend the opportunities provided by Stone Soup-namely, publication, training, and creative engagement-to displaced youth across the globe. In other words, through the Stone Soup Refugee Project, we aim to provide a forum for these young people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. Compared to the broader Stone Soup project, the Refugee Project is still in its early, developmental phase-but what we have achieved in a short span of time is also cause for celebration. We’ve forged connections with ten plus organizations working on-the-ground with refugee youth worldwide, and through these connections, we’ve collected over three-hundred pieces of writing and artwork created by refugee youth. We’ve displayed some of these pieces in our print magazine, and all of them in our newly created Refugee Project web portal, which was built from scratch since the inception of this project. We’ve been able to connect, in real time, with refugee youth in one of the world’s largest refugee camps, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya to deliver a series of creative writing workshops via skype. And finally, we’ve begun to explore forms of engagement and creative exchange between refugee youth and the broader Stone Soup family, through endeavors such as the Half-Baked Art Exchange, launched in June of this year with partner organization, the My Start Project. While we take great pride in celebrating these milestones, in order to ensure the continuation and expansion of the important work that we have embarked upon with the Stone Soup Refugee Project, we need the financial support of you, our Stone Soup supporters. We are beyond grateful for your support thus far, without which none of that described above would have been possible, and we humbly ask for your continued support to enable the expansion and continued development of these important endeavors central to the Stone Soup Refugee Project. In particular, funds raised in this drive will allow us to implement an expansion of the Refugee Project web portal in order to display the outcomes of a creative exchange between refugee youth and Stone Soup readers through the newly launched Half-Baked Art Exchange, as well as to support the expansion of this program. The newly created webpage will: detail the process of this exchange; display original pieces of artwork by youth in Kakuma Refugee Camp; display collaborative pieces of artwork in which our Stone Soup participants had the chance to learn about life in camp for these young refugees as they built upon their artwork; and finally, artist’s statements written by participants. This workshop was a powerful and unique experience and we hope, with the aid of your contributions, to extend the opportunity for many more to participate and display the results of their artistic collaboration. Thank you, once again, for believing in us and our mission. Your continued support has made this project possible. And to all who celebrate, wishing you a relaxing Thanksgiving and time spent with loved ones. With warmest wishes, 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.
Writing Workshop #74: Mixing Genres (Revisited)
An update from our seventy-fourth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 12, plus some of the output published below This week, workshop assistant Liam Hancock challenged the students to step outside of their comfort zones and incorporate two or more separate genres into a single work of fiction. The young writers were shown a collection of mixed genre works, from Beethoven’s famed Ode to Joy to Lewis Carrol’s “The Jabberwocky,” and then asked to extract the genres present within these masterpieces using even the most minuscule of clues. After a brief five minute warm-up inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s “Self Portrait” and “The Procession” by Henry Miller, in which Rachael and Nami read their incredible work, we moved into our 30-minute writing period. The young writers were asked during this time to write a coherent work of fiction including one genre they conventionally write in and one that they generally avoid. Yueling, Greta, Pearl, Ava, and Peri shared. The Challenge: Select a genre that you would like to write in. Then, think of a genre you generally avoid. Try to include both genres within one cohesive piece. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Katelyn, Nami, Nova, Pearl, Peri, Rachael, Reethi, Yueling The Claustrophobic Genie Peri Gordon, 13 My hand caresses the smooth surface of an ancient lamp, chilling my wispy indigo fingers and inviting me to come inside. Distracted, I just barely manage to pull my hand back before I’m transported into the lamp’s cramped little world—maybe for centuries. I’m not ready to get in my lamp yet. I haven’t even chosen a lamp. There are so many of them, stretching as far as the eye can see through this miles-long cavern, each one gilded and bejeweled, and I’m supposed to find my “perfect match.” I’d be happy with any of these lamps—if one can actually be happy to be stuck in one place for so long, even if it’s a miniature palace in there. At least time speeds up inside the lamp, so the centuries won’t really feel like centuries. Still, I’m dreading it—I’m already tired of this metal, metal, and more metal, and it’s only been two hours of searching. Genies are supposed to be wiser than humans, and yet humans are the ones who say, “All that glitters is not gold” while genies seem to think gold and glitter make life worth living. I move on to the next lamp. It’s pretty, beset with amethyst, sapphires, and silver flowers, but it’s so tiny I don’t even want to think about shrinking to fit in there. Let’s face it: I am a claustrophobic genie. I start to simply search for large lamps. It takes a half hour, but I finally stumble across one that’s the size of a pumpkin. It kind of looks like a pumpkin, too: round with a handle that sticks straight up—and yes, the handle would work for a human trying to set me free. Contrary to popular belief, not every lamp has to be rubbed to be opened. I like this lamp: It’s roomy, it’s easy to open, and it still manages to be pretty. The top and bottom are covered in rubies, the middle in topaz. Knowing I won’t find anything better than this and that I’ll never be more ready than I am right now, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and touch the lamp. Five seconds go by, then I’m sucked in, screaming, shrieking, and, worst of all, shrinking. When I open my eyes again, I doubt that I have opened them. I’ve always been told that the inside of my lamp would be beautiful, but all I see is darkness. “Don’t tell me you chose wrong,” says a rich, malice-filled voice. I blink. Suddenly, a spotlight appears on what looks like a cross between a genie and a human skeleton. He grins as I step back, shutting my eyes and hoping that I’ll wake up back in the gold-filled cavern. “Chose wrong? You mean, the wrong—the wrong lamp?” I manage to say. The skeleton nods. “You’re a wayward genie. You chose based on the wrong factors—size, or beauty, or convenience. The lamp didn’t call to you. You’ll have to pay the price for that.” “Where—where am I?” “Welcome to the Lamp of Darkness. Unlike in an ordinary genie lamp, time doesn’t speed up here. You’ll be trapped here for eternity—and suffer through every second of it. No human will ever find you here.”
