“Self-portrait” (acrylics) Alyssa Wu, 12 (Pleasanton, CA) Published in the September 2020 issue of Stone Soup A note from William Labor Day sale! 15% off Stone Soup print and digital subscriptions, as well as books—including our newly published Three Days till EOC by Abhi Sukhdial. Use the code LABORDAY20 at the checkout. Now that you are all back at school, we have a few administrative details to share on the new programs we began for lockdown and are continuing through the end of the year. Writing Workshop and Book Club The Writing Workshop resumes next week on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 9 a.m. PDT with a workshop on metaphor. The class is for students ages nine through fourteen. Our schedule from now on will be to run Book Club in that same slot on the last Saturday of each month and Writing Workshop on all the other Saturdays (apart from Thanksgiving weekend). Having run the programs for free since the spring, we will now be asking for a small fee for the classes from non-subscribers, which I am sure you will all understand. We will also need everyone to register via EventBrite. Once you have registered, you will receive joining details for the Zoom calls. All the details and registration links will be posted on the relevant page on our website, Stonesoup.com. We are scheduling the performance we’d discussed with the previous attendees for the last class in December. This public reading will include work from all the classes since March, as well as new work from the second season. Creativity Prompts and Flash Contests We thought that since you are going back to school, it would make sense to reduce the frequency of the creativity prompts and flash contests. We also need to make sure our small staff has enough time to complete the additional work that comes our way in the run up to the end of the year! Thus, the flash contest is now monthly—first week of the month—and we are sending out a weekly, rather than daily, report. We are preparing a questionnaire to get your opinions on various Stone Soup activities, including the flash contest and daily prompts. Refugee Project Laura Moran, the Refugee Project coordinator, has been corresponding with the Kakuma camp in Kenya for months. Kakuma is the largest refugee camp in the world, with nearly 200,000 residents. The camp is operated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). We have just been approved as an educational organization authorized to work with the camp authorities. Thank you, Laura, for your persistence! We had a Zoom meeting this week with the UNHCR education officer, and several others at the Kakuma camp, including the headteacher of the girls primary school funded by Angelina Jolie. We are developing a program with that school initially, with the intention of expanding to other less well-funded schools over time. We will now be meeting with people at the Kakuma camp on a regular basis to develop our partnership. Jane Levi and I also met with our website designers on Thursday to discuss building out a section of the website for submissions from refugee students. This portion of the website will have its own identity within the larger Stone Soup website. We look forward to soon being able to share with you works from refugee students that have been sent to us over the last year. Sincere thanks to those of you who are supporting this project. Your donations are making this important work possible. William’s Weekend Project Kateri Escober Doran’s “Locked out of Kindergarten” and Alyssa Wu’s self-portrait are the two creative works featured in today’s newsletter. Both of these works are extraordinary. I hope you will spend some time with each. Alyssa’s self-portrait shows us a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman, hair done up in a bun like a dancer and wearing a black top with a striking bird print. The black hair, black eyebrows, black eyes lined with black eye liner, black ear studs, and the black top gives this portrait a fantastic energy. The portrait projects itself in front of the vibrant green background. And the birds! A magnificent print, striking in its simplicity, and so effective. If you don’t feel confident drawing or painting, then use photography to develop your creative vision. Pick up your phone or camera. Dress yourself with a striking outfit. Then, either work photographing yourself in a mirror or work with with a mirror and your hands or work with your phone or camera to take a portrait of yourself. You can use a selfie mode and also photograph yourself in a mirror. “Locked out of Kindergarten” by Kateri Escober Doran was the winner of our 2019 Personal Narrative Contest. I have just re-read this story. It is everything that Stone Soup is about. Congratulations to Kateri for this well-remembered and well-written evocation of being in kindergarten—not yet on the first rung of the ladder to life. After you read this story, which I hope you will do right now, I’d like you to close your eyes for a few minutes, let the memories flow, and at least start your own narrative about something that happened to you when you were much younger. Kateri offers insights into the thinking of a child much younger than she is. As writers, one of your tasks is to create characters who offer insights into human behavior and emotions. Try to get back to a memory of you when you were younger and thinking in ways that are different from how you think now. Besides recording a memory that is likely to grow less precise with time, this is good practice for creating characters that think differently than you. As always, if you are happy with what you create, please go to our website and send Emma Wood, our editor, what you have done. Stay safe. Until next week, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #22 Flash Contest #22: Write a Story About a Unifying Place For our last in the current series of weekly flash
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Flash Contest #22: Write a Story About a Unifying Place–Our Winners and Their Work!
Flash Contest #22: Write a Story About a Unifying Place Maybe this is a coffee shop where a regular group of writers share their work, or a church where folks go to practice their religion. Simply explore how these people are unified, and why. For our last in the current series of weekly flash contests, entrants were inspired by another terrific prompt by Stone Soup reader and contributor Liam Hancock, 13. Liam asked you to write about a unifying place–and it was fascinating so see how you interpreted this. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of you thoughts of bookshops, libraries and favourite reading corners as your place of unity, comfort and companionship; others came up with a stunning range of locations they love for the people and the activities that take place in them. We read some beautiful writing this week, and are delighted to share the work of our winners with you on this page. Congratulations to all of them, and to our Honorable Mentions. Winners I walk the path I have walked many times by Morgan Dodd, 13, Portland, Oregon Waiting For Camp by Selina Lai, 10, Dublin, CA The Warehouse by Daniel Wei, 13, Weddington, NC Hope by April Yu, 12, East Brunswick, NJ Cinema by Annie Yu, 11, Great Neck, NY Honorable Mention Ireland by Stella Mae Cobb, 11, Norfolk, CT There are many like you! by Aashitha Jeyaganesh, 10, Edison, NJ The Library by Jason Liu, 11, Sharon, MA The Whales in the Metro Station by Kyler Min, 9, Vienna, VA The Bookworms by Ella Wan, 9, North Oaks, MN Please note that our Flash Contest will continue through the end of the year, but now that school is back in session we will be holding it once a month, instead of every week. The weekly prompt on the first Monday of every month will be the subject of the contest, and you will have until noon PST on the following Sunday to submit your entries–we are giving you a little more time than before, as we know you have more on with school! Morgan Dodd, 13Portland, OR I walk the path I have walked many times Morgan Dodd, 13 I walk the path I have walked many times. Behind the abandoned seven eleven parking lot, and deep into the woods. My hands brush the thorn bushes that used to bring us so much pain. The creek that I used to be able to swim in. And finally I arrive at my destination, the fort that me and only the closest of my friends built. It was quite the site. Three long summer years filled with long days of work led to arguably the most impressive fort. From the outer walls riddled with holes, to the grand treehouse in the middle of our little city we built ourselves, to the elevated fighting platform where we settled our disputes. The same place the accident happened. I start to see some of my friends arrive, all dressed appropriately for the occasion. I am now passing the walls and now I am at what they called the central hall, even though it was fully exposed to the elements. I finally arrive at the meeting place where a few members of our group are standing over a tree. All of them are dressed in black and have their head lowered. Underneath them is a picture of a boy, and under that a body of a boy. The memories come rushing back to me. A serious argument had broken out that day. I was in the treehouse finishing up one of the bedrooms, when I started to hear shouting from beneath me. Two of our members, Kyle and Chad were arguing over something, I could not tell what at the time. All I knew was that they were very enraged with each other, to the point that they were going to settle their dispute on the fighting platform. Now, the fighting platform has some distinct rules: no kicking, no weapons, and especially no pushing due to the fact that it was a pretty big fall–about 6 feet. Everyone was gathered on the ground or on the poorly-made benches surrounding the ring. There is where I learned the spark of this conflict. Chad had convinced Kyle’s girlfriend to leave him and date Chad. There was a lot of passion behind this fight, and it showed. Kyle began to swing wildly at Chad while Chad was trying his best to dodge the blows. Chad was able to see a weakness in Kyle’s wild attacks and was able to nail him directly in the mouth. In a fit of rage Kyle charged at Chad and sent Chad careening off the platform. Chad landed in the worst way possible, on his neck. He wasn’t getting up. The ambulance was called, and so were the police. Chad and Kyle were both taken away. So was our fort. The authorities said it was no longer safe. That was the end of our time here. Except recently our fort has made a comeback on the anniversary of the accident. Chad’s family asked to bury his body under the fort’s treehouse, for it’s the thing he loved most in life. Everyone decided to come together, and commemorate his death, and everyone is here placing flowers under the tree. Selina Lai, 10Dublin, CA Waiting For Camp Selina Lai, 10 Adeline bit her lip nervously and wrung her hands. She sighed loudly, leaned forward, and closely examined all the cracks and grooves on her nails. When are they going to be here? She thought impatiently. She briskly tucked her books of stamps into her pocket, careful not to let others see her precious collection that she held close to her heart. Her father had cheerfully introduced her to stamp-collecting a few years ago, but now he had stopped after getting fired from his job. Now he had to attend job interviews frequently. Her mother didn’t understand the importance of her stamps (she would constantly refer to them
Author Interview: James Ponti, author of the City Spies books, speaks with blogger Thee
Editor’s Note: Recently, Stone Soup blogger Thee Sim Ling reached out to us to ask if she could arrange an interview with one of her favorite authors, James Ponti. Luckily, the bestselling author of the City Spies series generously agreed! Below is their conversation, where they discuss writing about different cultures, literary influences, favorite characters, and more. Thee Sim Ling: I read that a vacation in Europe first inspired you to write this series on juvenile secret agents. How did that tiny idea develop into City Spies? James Ponti: My wife and I went to visit our son who was studying in England for the year. We went to London and Paris and had the best time. Everything about the cities was exciting and it made me want to write an international story with kids from around the world. I also wanted to set it in great cities on different continents. The first part I came up with was give the spies code names based on the cities they were from and it just grew from that. The first thing I figure out when I write them is what cities will be in this story. TSL: What authors or books have had the greatest influence on your writing, especially for this book? JP: When I was growing up, my favorite book was From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. That book as well as her others has always influenced my writing. I also loved Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown books. Currently there are many great spy and mystery writers who influence me. A good friend of mine is Stuart Gibbs, whose Spy School books are hugely popular. Stuart’s been very inspirational for me. TSL: In every single one of your books, you are able to create dynamic characters with distinct personalities, making them so real that they almost seem to leap off the page. Not only that, but you also are able to have them interact with each other in an authentic way. This is really crucial for your stories, which often require characters to work together as a team. What’s your secret? JP: First of all, that is so incredibly nice of you to say. Even though the plots of my books are on the unbelievable side (zombie hunters, a 12-year old consultant for the FBI, and a team of teen and tween MI6 agents), it is my main goal for the characters to be totally believable and for their relationships to feel like the relationships of the readers. I think without that the stories don’t work. I also try to give them a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, insecurities and confidences. TSL: You always seem to choose the best names for your stories. (Omega, T.O.A.S.T., Mother etc.) How do you come up with them? JP: I really wish there was an answer for this. Sometimes names come easy – both Omega and T.O.A.S.T. are examples of things that came instantly. With T.O.A.S.T. that was crucial. If Florian and Margaret did everything they do in the books exactly the same way, but didn’t have a name for the skill they developed, I think the books would be only half as popular. Having something to lock onto is important. Unfortunately, many times titles and names take forever and there’s no set pattern to developing them. You just have to keep trying until something sounds right. TSL: Of the five city spies, who is your personal favorite: Sara (Brooklyn), Solomon (Paris), João (Rio), Amita (Kat), or Olivia (Sydney)? Why? JP: I do not have a favorite. I think if I did, they would suffer on the page because I’d give better stuff to my favorite. As it is now, I find myself saying things like, “Rio didn’t get enough, let’s come up with something good for him.” I will say that it started with Brooklyn, because that’s where the story started and I had a vision of her first, but the others quickly developed. Instead a favorite character, I have favorite character traits to write. For example, I love to write the moments where Kat displays her incredible reasoning or the parts that really showcase Sydney’s sense of humor. TSL: How similar or different was writing City Spies, set all across the world, compared to writing Dead City, set in New York City, and Framed!, set in Washington D.C.? JP: I do a ton of research with regard to setting for all of my books. I think it’s such an important part to make the story come to life. For Dead City and Framed! this was easy because I’ve been to New York and Washington so many times that I could give you a tour and you’d think I had lived there are one time or another. For City Spies this is much more a challenge. I’ve been to all the places in the first two books except for one (there are a couple chapters in book 2 set in Oxford and I’ve not been there yet, so I had to talk to people who went to college there), but as I start writing book 3 I am going to have to branch out and that’s coming to make it harder, but also more fun in a way. The really upsetting part is that Covid has made travel so difficult I can’t go do in person research. TSL: I have noticed that as you were born in Italy, you often feature your Italian culture in your books. The narrators in your first two trilogies both have Italian heritage. Why is your Italian heritage very important to you in your books? JP: I don’t think it’s important for them to have Italian heritage, although I like that. I do, however, think it’s essential for them to have heritage of some type. It’s easy for me to write Italian because that’s my experience and
