Astro Doll (mixed media) by Ruth, 8 (Ethiopia & Kenya), published in the September 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Laura Dear friends, It’s hard to believe this is my first official newsletter. Some of you may know me from the Book Club for Writers. I am also an enthusiastic Stone Soup parent. My primary role at Stone Soup is the director of the Refugee Project. I want to write to you from that perspective today. The Refugee Project was launched in 2018 with the aim of providing a platform for refugee children to use their voices to tell their own stories. To do that, we have partnered with several organizations that work with young people, both in refugee camps and living in countries far from their homes, where they have been relocated to build a new life. Through these partnerships, we have collected over three-hundred pieces of artwork and writing by young refugees. Some of these are featured in the September issue of Stone Soup. Two particularly intriguing pieces are Astro Doll and Astro Doll Queen, created by students at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, with the support of the My Start Project. The term “Astro Doll” was made up by these young artists to capture the alien, or otherworldly, quality of the dolls. These artists were inspired by the idea of their own legal status as refugees—refugees are not granted citizenship in the countries where they are forced to reside and are instead labeled as having “alien status.” The Future of the Refugee Project In the next phase of the Refugee Project, as we continue to collect creative works by refugee youth for display on the website, we are also working to expand and deepen our collaboration with the organizations that have already contributed writing and artwork to the Refugee Project. Our central goal for these ongoing collaborations is to facilitate further engagement between you, our Stone Soup audience, and the artists and creative works displayed through the Refugee Project. This means many exciting prospective projects, including teaching creative writing to young people in refugee camps and then, through these efforts, facilitating collaborative learning—things like pen pal partnerships and other ways of exchanging and engaging with one another’s writing and artwork. To make this vision a reality, we need your help. Our fundraising drive for this project will last through the end of September. Our deepest thanks to those of you who have already donated to support this work! Click here to donate now. To explore our growing collection of creative work by refugee youth in its entirety, check out our newly created Refugee Project web portal. Book Club Join Book Club today to discuss Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk and to have a say in our October book choice! We are thrilled to share that we will be joined by Lucy Worsley, a prominent British author and historian to discuss her fantastic book The Austen Girls. Sign up for the December Book Club today to meet Ms. Worsley and discuss this fresh and fun story about some never-before-told trials and tribulations in the life of Jane Austen! Weekend Project For your weekend project, I encourage you to explore, in writing or artwork, the idea of “other worlds.” You can explore this theme through many lenses. You might seek, through your creative efforts, to create a sense of place that feels foreign, unfamiliar, or alternate to your own world. Or you might go even deeper and explore, in your writing or artwork, the concept of alienation. How might you represent being unsettled? How might you challenge a sense of rootedness and belonging in your characters or artistic subjects? As always, we encourage you to submit the work you produce to Stone Soup for consideration either in the magazine or on the blog. Until next time, Former Contributor Sabrina Guo Garners Recognition from President Biden Write and publish a multimedia E-book with Dr. Jiang Pu! Dr. Jiang Pu, a member of the Stone Soup family, is offering a series of ten classes on publishing a multimedia e-book on Asian/Pacific Islander American heroes in conjunction with published authors Oliver Chin and David Siller! Students will have their multimedia e-books published in the world’s first student-made AAPI online library and present at SCCL Young Author Talk Forum and lunar new year event! This is a class for highly motivated young writers who want to practice research skills, media literacy and critical thinking, multimedia creative design, and more. As we all have different learning capabilities as well as varying schedules, Dr. Pu has split the class into three different start times: every Wednesday at 4 pm PDT starting September 29 for children grades 4–7, every Friday at 4 pm PDT starting October 1 for children grades 4–7, and every Monday at 4:15 pm PDT starting October 4 for children grades 8–11. Stone Soup subscribers get $100 off with coupon “Soup100”! Selfie Contest 2021: With and Without Masks As has always been the case, we want these selfies to tell us a story. Think about how masks can both aid and make more difficult the expression of thoughts and feelings. How can you show us who you are behind the mask, and how can you build off of that image once the mask disappears, or vice versa? Get creative! Try something you’ve never thought to try before! Surprise us, and—most importantly—surprise yourself! You may submit up to four selfies: two with a mask and two without. Deadline: October 3, 2021 To submit to this contest, please visit our Submittable page. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at on our blog! Young Blogger Daniel, 10, reviewed Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. From Stone Soup September 2021 It Needs Courage! By Parwani Amiri, 16 (Herat Province, Afghanistan [Ritsona Refugee Camp, Greece]) It needs courage to build a school ! It needs courage to touch children’s hearts ! It needs courage to welcome homelessness ! It needs courage to stand with us in one line
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #13: Ekphrasis
An update from our thirteenth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday September 18, plus some of the output published below For today’s workshop, Conner chose to focus on “ekphrasis,” meaning a creative interpretation, response, or translation of another work of art. Because ekphrasis has historically referred specifically to the transformation of visual art into poetry, we began class with this concept. First, we looked at Peter Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus followed by William Carlos Williams’ poem written in response, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Next, we turned to Keats’ classic poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn” in order to see clearer the benefits of ekphrasis. Then, having seen two examples of visual art being transformed into poetry, we looked at an example of the opposite in Charles Demuth’s painting of William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Great Figure,” and William Holman Hunt’s painted rendition of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s lyrical ballad “The Lady of Shalott.” To further illustrate ekphrasis’ power to transform and translate, we looked at painted examples of famous creation myths, one of biblical origin and the other of Japanese. Our final example was Michelangelo’s rendition of God giving life to Adam on the Sistene Chapel. By workshop’s end, we came to the conclusion that, in the words of student Olivia Rhee, ekphrasis “paints words into something new that lets the eyes see instead of imagine.” The Participants: Nova, Audrey, Simran, Emma, Josh, Clara, Penelope, Lina, Alice, Ethan, Ellie, Svitra, Sinan, Shilla, and Olivia The Challenge: Write a story or a poem based on Peter Bruegel’s painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels. Emma Hoff, 9(Bronx, NY) The Price of Free Will Emma Hoff, 9 People are foolish. While fighting, those great grey things climbed onto our heads and begged for air. Eyed from above, clouds were meaningless, wings that had sprouted from spines of swords. A magical thing went limp and floated. Eyed from above, claustrophobic screams and gasps and chokings, wide open mouths, slit open mouths, eyes appearing inside. Little soldiers, clockwork hearts that wish for nothing but blood, blood for new stained wood uniforms. Mussels find hiding in their own kind, they are the moth wings of fishtails. All the instrument plays is a march by Shostakovich or any kind of Tchaikovsky. I hope these composers did not mean to be programmed to the minds of battle, they only dreamed of battles like this one, a woman of candy, climbing up a tower of others. The court jester thought this would be a good place to try out his jokes, but all that is left of him is his hat, his precious hat. Baskets of fish and rice and things, and baby chicks are squishing people (and the baby chicks). The clouds released penguins or puffins, nobody’s sure, the sun has burned them too quickly. People that die look up, they see their last visions of a sunny day, and even that is clouded by fog and red and people blocking other people, and when you are lying on your back while people are stepping on your chest and ignoring you, it is hard to see anything but twisted feet, jumping women in dresses, aprons, you think you saw an apron, but it could have just been your warped point of view showing you the sky that lifts itself higher. You thought you also saw the sky puff its chest, but it was just a shape, like an egg, with eyes where the eyes of a hammer-head shark would be, with teeth and a grin, snatching wings, fairies were here, too. Audrey Tzeng, 12 (Rocklin, CA) The Box Opened Audrey Tzeng, 12 The Box Opened The box must have opened. What else could produce such things? Yes, there’s no better word for them, Some man and some animal. Some half-and-half And some neither at all. They cannot be ordered, cannot be named. Angels stabbing and hacking As man, that fiendish beast, serenely plays on. Who fights for who? They eat each other And yet they are each other. Now my head spins. For we may not even be sure of the supposed “moon” in the background. This painting turns day to night And night to day.
Writing Workshop #47: Character Descriptions
An update from our forty-seventh Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday September 18, plus some of the output published below At this writing workshop, we looked at some classic art: grotesques by Leonardo da Vinci and portraits by Vermeer and Rembrandt. With these art pieces in mind, William asked the participants to think about the concept of an outline or sketch for characters, and how we might flesh them out later in the writing process. William emphasized how the choices that authors make in describing characters impact the story as a whole and how the reader understands a character. The Challenge: Write a description of a character, beginning with an outline of their face. Then you can move on to other physical characteristics or clothing descriptions. Lastly, if you have time, you may build a story around this character. The Participants: Faiz, Peri, Aditi, Lena D, Nami, Jonathan L, Tilly M, Rachael L, Madeline K, Elbert P, Sierra E, Marissa L, Kate P, Kina S, Liam Peri Gordon, 11(Sherman Oaks, CA) Defined by Suffering by Peri Gordon, 11 What to do with such terrible eyes? They were wide, wet, bloodshot things that stood out even in a crowd of a hundred, and the right one was black and swollen. Below the eyes, the man’s nose, pale and slender, rose from his face, then dipped back down into it only a few centimeters below, unnoticed. The lips were cut up, chapped, and ruined, as the man felt like his heart was. The chin was small and pointed, and the rest of the face was only a bit wider. Around his shoulders was a tiny cloth, which had once been a large rag, which had once been a ripped coat, which had once been a fine coat. What were once smooth, silken pants had had a similar fate. The man was barefoot and gloveless, and his hands and feet were a deep shade of purple from the punishing cold of winter. His fingernails were reduced to nothing, for the man had bitten them anxiously day after day. A once successful businessman, now injured, rejected, and homeless, he thought about standing up straight but no longer had the will even to accomplish this simple task.
