“Girl in the Sun” (Canon PowerShot SX600) photographed by Sage Millen, 13, (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and published in the May 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Emma As many of you regular readers may know, in addition to being editor of Stone Soup, I have also been a PhD student in literature. Well, now I can officially say I am a PhD candidate in literature! What is the distinction? For the first few years of my PhD, I had to complete a certain number of courses in the department. Then I had to prepare for my “Qualifying Exam”—for my department, this was a three-hour oral exam based on a portfolio of written materials that totaled nearly 100 pages! Before I passed the exam, I was a PhD student—but now I have passed it, I have “advanced to candidacy”; I am a PhD candidate, and “all” I have left to do is write my dissertation. I thought I would feel happiness and relief once the exam was over. I would no longer have the added stress and work on top of the regular stress and work of my regular life! However, still only a few days out from the exam, I feel deflated, disappointed, empty. This feeling reminds me of the way I feel whenever I finish writing a book manuscript. The whole time I am working on the book, I fantasize about finishing it—of having written the book so no longer have to be writing it. But then once I am finished, I am flooded with a feeling of sadness. What will I do now? What will force me to think deeply and thoroughly through ideas in language? What will I work on? This feeling is the best reminder there is that process is everything. Writing and making art can be difficult, but it is in the process where we find joy and meaning. Writing is about writing, not about having written. As Jorie Graham, a famous contemporary poet (and my former teacher!), once said to me, “Your last piece is never going to write the next one for you.” So, whether you are working on a manuscript to submit to our book contest or an artwork or shorter piece of writing to submit to the magazine or blog, I encourage you to remind yourself, whenever you find yourself wishing you were done already, that actually you will miss the project when you are actually done. Until next week, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest Winners! 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, no one story following a similar arc. We found ourselves immersed in dramas set in the far reaches of outer space, character driven vignettes set in a classroom, rich narratives told from the perspective of a dog, and much, much more. A big thank you to all who submitted this month—it was a pleasure to read all of your work. In particular, we congratulate our Winners and Honorable Mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “The BWBM Students” by Ritobroto Roy Chowdhury, 10, (Riverside, CA) “T.L.G.E.Y.5.T.” by Darren Fisher, 9, (Portland, OR) “Connecticutians, I Ate the Grape” by Rex Huang, 11, (Lake Oswego, OR) “The Book Without a Name” by Serena Lin, 10, (Scarsdale, NY) “The Pheasant Was Delicious” by Juliet D. Simon, 11, (Santa Monica, CA) Honorable Mentions “Once Upon a Time a Friendship” by Sophia Wong, 9, (Short Hills, NJ) “Chocotalia and Hideous Dragon Monster” by Sophie Liu, 9, (Surrey, BC) “When a Chicken Says ‘SQUAWK!'” by Olivia Luan, 11, (Great Falls, VA) “Cats, Dogs, Dragons, and Other Household Pets” by Atalie Lyda, 12, (Portland, OR) “You Are NOT Reading This Book Cover” by Joycelyn Zhang, 11, (San Diego, CA) Writing Classes and Book Club Are you looking for classes to inspire, improve, and practice your writing with great teachers and a group of like-minded young writers and readers? Join us! We do charge fees for our clubs and workshops, but we try to keep them as low as possible, and we offer discounts to subscribers and scholarships to students who need them. Contact us at education@stonesoup.com with any questions. Writing Workshop: we have two new writing groups for spring/summer, starting April 17, that will meet via Zoom every Saturday except for the last Saturday of the month. Come write with us and share your work with your peers. Find out more and register for a workshop at Eventbrite. To see some of the great work produced by current workshop members, read contributions published at Stonesoup.com, or join us at one of our free public readings! Book Club: a book club for writers that meets via Zoom on the last Saturday of every month, with a new season starting on April 24! Find out more and register for book club at Eventbrite. Check out which books we are reading on our website. Young Author’s Studio Summer Camps: we are offering a wide range of classes through the summer jointly with the Society of Young Inklings. Each camp runs for two hours per day, Monday through Thursday. All details and bookings via Society of Young Inklings. Book Contest 2021 For information on submitting to the Stone Soup Book Contest 2021, please click here. To submit your manuscript, please visit our submittable site. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Young Blogger Daniel Zhu published an informative article on the stock market. Read updates on both of the Writing Workshops from Saturday, May 1: Writing Workshop #39: Ghosts (part 1), and How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #3: Lightness. As part of AAPI Heritage month, Young Blogger Tang Li wrote a personal narrative describing her
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Writing Workshop #40: Ghosts (Part Two)
An update from our fortieth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 8, plus some of the output published below This week, William completed the journey to the spirit world that we started last week. Inspired by the Victorian-era spirit drawings of Georgian Houghton, the group considered ways of using the idea of the inspiration of spirits in writing, as a way of communicating between the living and the dead. We thought about various means people use to stay in touch with their ancestors, from home shrines to seances, and the different ways spirit manifest themselves in stories. We watched a video of a Hawaiian storyteller telling a story about a haunted condominium, ending with the classic words “and the story is true”, and discussed Augustine the Samburu blacksmith’s story of a baby that turns out to be a ghost. We read a section from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as Scrooge sees the strange, form-shifting spirit appear before him; and considered the role of the haunted house in many traditional ghost stories. We watched a beautifully animated (with shadow puppets) performance of Schubert’s setting of Goethe’s ErlKonig by the Oxford Leider, and looked at one of the earliest recorded zombie stories (Ishtar). Finally, with a woodcut from Hokusai, William reminded the group that spirits can take many forms… The Challenge: Write a scene, story or poem with a connection to ghosts, spirits or the spirit world. What does the spirit world bring to your story? OR, try some spirit writing. The Participants: Peri, Lena DN, Maddie, Gia, Leo, Madeline K, Pranjoli, Reese, Margaret, Wesley, Julia, Rachael, Chelsea, Jaya, Lena A, Mia, Delight, Lina, Helen, Hanbei, Peter, Sage, Sierra, Mahika, Anna K, Audrey, Angela, Tilly, Jonathan, Grace, Charlotte, Iago, Nova. Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA My Shame By Peri Gordon, 11 Whistle, whistle. They inhabit me like I am some sort of haunted medieval fortress. Whoosh. One of them darts through one of my walls and into the well-furnished but dust-covered room where the young girl once spent her time making beautiful sketches before her death of sickness in that same room. Another ghost haunts the stairs, where the girl’s father met his own end in a fatal accident. And yet another lurks in the former office of the girl’s mother, where she privately ended her own life. Whiz. Each spirit was once alive. One of them was the girl. One was the father, one the mother. They all died too soon, and that thought keeps them here, passionate grief scorching their minds and hearts. They are each so caught up in their own misery that they do not notice each other’s ghosts, only their own. I was once a place of happiness, the cheerful, stylish, modern home for a family of three. Now I am a place of despair, a ghost habitat. People come outside, snapping photos and gossiping about what went on inside me. Even those who do not believe there are ghosts are prevented by others from coming inside me. Most of them know that the ghosts are, indeed, here. There is a mansion across the street, looking more old-fashioned than I ever have. That would make a good haunted house. But no; I am the haunted one. The home across the street is filled with happy people, happy rooms, happy memories. But I am desperate. Whistle, whistle. I summon all the energy that being haunted provides me. Whoosh. Power and adrenaline build up inside me like fuel for a car. Whiz. I send the spirits soaring out of me and into the home on the other side of the road. I am free from being haunted. Let the suffering be transferred to somewhere else. I have held the burden of being shunned and isolated for long enough. It is another home’s turn. It only takes a few days for the family to move out. Hope rises inside of me. But they do not come here. People don’t know I am no longer haunted. In fact, they believe I have spread the ghost disease, and that now both the other house and I are haunted. Most people leave the neighborhood, never to return again. And the ghosts, missing their old spaces, return to me. Well, that backfired. Perhaps I really am haunted, not just because of the spirits I contain but because I have a wicked soul. Maybe seeing the deaths truly changed me, for I have become immeasurably evil, so evil that I would try to inflict my suffering onto another to free myself. I am despicable. And now that the neighborhood’s inhabitants have left, I am even more lonely than I was before. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Stars By Lina Kim, 11 That was the last thing I saw before I faded into the darkness, the dust of those who have fallen. But then, how am I still in the world of those alive? My country has changed much since the war. My people are no longer enslaved. But at times, we are mistreated. There was an incident with a man named George Floyd nearly a year ago. I’d lived with these people for over a century, watching as our society changed. Everything is so advanced now. I had scoped out the woods for a perfect resting place. There, I would not be disturbed. Until the day I was. As I hovered, formless, above a fallen log, I saw a flash of light and heard a short click. Without thinking, I rushed towards it. “Wow, this is a perfect place for—” started a voice. It was a girl, holding what I had learned was called a smartphone. “What are you doing here?” I asked in my deepest, most threatening voice. She jumped in fright and whipped her head around. “W-what?! Who’s there?” she stuttered. “Leave,” I growled. She took off running in the other direction. I sighed. Finally, peace again. I decided to explore the woods. After several hours of aimless floating,
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 story followed a similar arc. We found ourselves immersed in dramas set in the far reaches of outer space, character driven vignettes set in a classroom, rich narratives told from the perspective of a dog, and much, much more. A big thank you to all who submitted this month; it was a pleasure to read all of your work. In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “The BWBM Students” by Ritobroto Roy Chowdhury, 10, (Riverside, CA) “T.L.G.E.Y.5.T.” by Darren Fisher, 9, (Portland, OR) “Connecticutians, I Ate the Grape” by Rex Huang, 11, (Lake Oswego, OR) “The Book Without a Name” by Serena Lin, 10, (Scarsdale, NY) “The Pheasant Was Delicious” by Juliet D. Simon, 11, (Santa Monica, CA) Honorable Mentions “Once Upon a Time a Friendship” by Sophia Wong, 9, (Short Hills, NJ) “Chocotalia and Hideous Dragon Monster” by Sophie Liu, 9, (Surrey, BC) “When a Chicken Says ‘SQUAWK!'” by Olivia Luan, 11, (Great Falls, VA) “Cats, Dogs, Dragons, and Other Household Pets” by Atalie Lyda, 12, (Portland, OR) “You Are NOT Reading This Book Cover” by Joycelyn Zhang, 11, (San Diego, CA) Ritobroto Roy Chowdhury, 10, (Riverside, CA) The BWBM Students Ritobroto Roy Chowdhury, 10 Hello, I am Mr. Wats. I have a class of very, very, very, very, very, very different 3rd graders. This is a review of school and their life from their perspective. John School? What school. I’m John. Do not like school. No read. Bad write. Annoying math. That school. I tough. I known as bully. John big. Known as bully. First bad write. Second annoying math. Third horrible grammar. Only lunch recess. School BAD. BAD stand for Boring, Annoying, Dumb. I bully. Recess I say to Johnny. You dumb because you love school. Get it? BAD. Last letter stand for Dumb and Johnny like school. Move on to Johnny Mr. Wats. Johnny I love school. School’s the best. I read John’s section. I can hear you. You’re saying that John’s section has horrible grammar. I agree. My section is going to have way better grammar than John’s. Here are some things you should know about me. 1. I’m Johnny 2. I love school 3. I love math 4. I love grammar 5. I love school Hopefully now you know a little more about me. There’s just 1 thing I didn’t include on the list. You may be wondering what it is. I love reading. Yep. That’s it. You know almost everything about me now. Since I have to make this a little more interesting and longer I’ll talk about other things. Did you know that the cafeteria food is the best food in the world in my opinion? The pepperoni pizza is delicious and anyone who says it’s not, they’re wrong. Well, Mr. Wats says that I can go to recess now. BYE! Rick Since I don’t want to make this long, I made a list of everything you should know about me. 1. I’m Rick Dodder 2. I’m always late to school 3. Recess is my favorite thing about school 4. I’m lazy 5. I don’t do my chores 6. I have glasses 7. I play video games 8. I watch TV 9. I don’t like Johnny or John Those are the things you should know about me. Any questions? Send me an email at… “Rick your time is up!” Oh that’s Mr. Wats. Well, I guess you’ll never get to know my email. Jorge You’ll never guess my name. What do you thing it is? Sure, it’s spelled J O R G E but how do you think you’re supposed to pronounce it? If you guessed George you’re wrong. If you guessed Hor-hay you’re right! If you took Spanish lessons or know Spanish or Portuguese then you should have had no problem. If you pronounced it wrong I suggest you take Spanish lessons. I have lots of siblings. 2 older twin brothers, 1 sister in college, a younger sister, and baby brother. My sister goes to college in Northern California. My twin older brothers both go to Martin Luther King Jr. High School. As you know, I go to 3rd grade and my younger sister is
