“One Horse”. Photograph by Lara Katz, 14, Weston, CT. Published April 2018. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Good morning! Do you ever wonder what former Stone Soup contributors are up to these days? We do! There are a lot of former contributors, after all—we’ve been publishing since 1973! We wanted to find a way to spotlight some of the amazing people who were published in Stone Soup and went on to do all sorts of cool things. So, starting this month, we’ll post short interviews with former contributors to the blog. First up, we have Catherine Winings. Catherine’s illustrations were published in our November/December 2009 issue, alongside the story “The Balance” by Kia Okuma. Stone Soup: What are you doing now? Catherine Winings: I am currently living and working in Chicago. I received a BFA about two years ago from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I focused in printmaking, painting/drawing, and visual communications. I discovered etching in my first printmaking class and have been working in that medium ever since. I began working as an intern at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative (CPC) three years ago, and I still work there, helping to manage the studio. While at CPC, I also began printing editions and artist’s proofs of etchings for the artist Tony Fitzpatrick and occasionally other artists. When I have time, I work in the CPC studio on my own etchings and other prints. Additionally, I have been working on a project for the Art Institute of Chicago museum creating replica armor. My role in the project is to paint a resist (a type of painting technique) onto the armor in an intricate pattern that is later etched into the metal using copper sulfate. I also work at a framing shop SS: What did Stone Soup mean to you? CW: If I remember correctly, I only ever submitted one illustration to Stone Soup because I was near the end of the age limit at the time. It was pretty exciting to me to have my drawing published. I have always spent a lot of time drawing and reading, so it came naturally for me to be interested in illustration. I also had an art teacher, Susanne Dassel, who went to the Rhode Island School of Design for illustration and was always supportive of my narrative-based drawing. Being paid for my illustration gave the whole e xperience a feeling of professionalism and reinforced the idea that I had something to offer through drawing. I think the envelope I received from Stone Soup is still taped to either my wall or the side of my bookcase in my childhood bedroom. Even though I have moved in a slightly different direction since then, I am still interested in illustration and feel that the kind of imagery that I currently use in my printmaking is closely tied to SS: Do you have any advice for current readers, writers, and artists who contribute to Stone Soup? CW: My advice would be to value your own work and invest in it. I have often been very self-conscious about the things that I make or at times have felt out of place, but I think it is very important to believe in your own creative impulses and then to put in the effort to back it up. Even if the work you’ve done isn’t obvious to other people, you can feel confident knowing what you’ve put into it. Rather than just pushing yourself as hard as you can, I think it is more important to take the time to figure out what you want to do, care about what you do, and make productive decisions. Thank you so much to Catherine! We’re so excited to hear from other contributors. Know any that you think should be featured? Have them email me at sarah@stonesoup.com. Happy weekend! Focus on poetry for National Poetry Month! To celebrate National Poetry month, we are offering a discount on the wonderful Stone Soup Book of Poetry, a collection of 120 poems published in Stone Soup between 1988 and 2011. Pick up print copies at 25% off, and eBook editions at half price in the Stone Soup Online Store, throughout April 2019. And, for more poetry ideas, don’t forget to visit the Academy of American Poets’ website–especially, check our their Dear Poet initiative. Just click on the logo: Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. There’s been lots of news about outer space lately—did you see the picture of the black hole? Well, this week Ishayyu writes about galaxies for the blog: “A spiral galaxy looks like an octopus, with its ‘arms’ swinging around. We live on one of the outer part of an ‘arm’ in the Milky Way.” Read more here. Plus, Elijah reviews the website Reddit, where he gets news: “With so much content available to us, what is the best way to browse the internet and find the information that we care about? The answer is Reddit, an online social media and news sharing application as well as the best way to find content over the internet.” What do you think? Do you agree with Elijah, or do you still prefer to read a newspaper or watch the news? Share a comment on his post if you have any thoughts on the subject. From Stone Soup, April 2018 lonely boy By Gilbert Huang, 9 Shanghai, China Who am I, am I just a lonely boy? When I am lonely I feel wild. Does nobody want me? Or do I have to stay here forever? Well, I will be crashed by a car? What shall I do. I need a real life! I am very far to become a normal boy. Read more reflective poetry at our website, Stonesoup.com. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
The newspaper, something that nowadays seems to be a memory of the past. The internet was found as a better alternative for finding information. With so much content available to us, what is the best way to browse the internet and find the information that we care about? The answer is Reddit, an online social media and news sharing application as well as the best way to find content over the internet. Reddit is everything that the newspaper isn’t: timely, interactive, personalized, and absorbing. To be put simply, Reddit is a constantly updating list of all the most pertinent information to you. Clicking on to Reddit for the first time you will be met with what is called the front page of the internet. The front page is made up of a wall of links and text posted by other Reddit users called Redditors. The algorithms that are in place are more complicated than I can fully explain here, but a mathematical system is used to make sure everything in your feed is likely to be worth your time. The basic filter on Reddit comes from the ability to upvote and downvote posts that you see. The only posts that make it to the top have a high ratio upvotes to downvotes, meaning that it is confirmed that people generally find this post worth your time. One of the defining factors of Reddit to me is just how intuitive sifting through the infinite content is. Reddit is divided up into communities called subreddits which all work as independent versions of the front page but are specifically centered around a certain topic. As of January 2018, 1.2 million subreddits exist ranging anywhere from r/funny to r/sanfrancisco to r/communism. If you have an interest the chances that a subreddit exists for you, and if you have something new you have the ability to start your own subreddit. Once you are active on enough subs the front page becomes your own with posts being personalized towards you based off of your interests. Pulling up Google and typing “news” into the search bar doesn’t really cut it anymore because of how much you’ll be exposed to and how many things you actually care about. Why would anyone settle with the compromise of just flipping on a news channel when there are so many better alternatives that offer a much more valuable service? Reddit provides the best answer for how to browse the internet and get the content you need in a timely, personalized, interactive, and participatory matter. Once you start using Reddit and get used to it you’ll wonder how you ever interneted without it.
Galaxies
Galaxies are one of the most interesting things in space. They are all filled up with stars, planets, and dust. Did you know that you are made of star dust because our galaxy is filled with dust? Comets are falling on earth all the time spreading this dust. Galaxies, as you know are made of stars, planets, and dust. They flood the universe together. Every few light years, galaxies are seen. NASA even found a nearly habitable solar system in the Milky Way. It has a planet with plants, but they have not seen water, yet. Even if there was water the star is much too young and dim to live in. All galaxies keep their stars, planets, and star dust together with gravity. They keep these things because it is held together by gravity. Gravity is a galaxy’s best friend. Galaxies are huge and seem endless! Even after so much research and space travel, we still do not know where our galaxy ends. As you know we live in the Milky Way galaxy. Do you know that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy? A spiral galaxy looks like an octopus, with its “arms” swinging around. We live on one of the outer part of an “arm” in the Milky Way. There are three main kinds of galaxies. Spiral, irregular, and elliptical. An irregular galaxy is a galaxy with no proper shape. Hence the word irregular. A elliptical galaxy looks oval shaped, like an egg except flatter. It is important to classify galaxies’ features from each other. There are millions of galaxies in the universe, but we can only see so many, specifically three galaxies. People who are north of the equator see the Andromeda Galaxy. This galaxy will crash into our galaxy in a few million years. The Andromeda Galaxy has a weird gravitational force. Instead of getting pushed backwards like all other galaxies, because of the power of the Big Bang. On the south equator people can see the large and small Magellanic Clouds. Although not much is known about them scientists think these galaxies are two of the brightest galaxies in our universe. You can’t exactly see these three galaxies properly. They look like small, hazy patches of light. We need to research more about these galaxies and see if we find intelligent life. Galaxies have so many interesting facts about them. People have learned more about galaxies from 2015 than ever before! Galaxies are or one the most intriguing puzzle pieces to the biggest puzzle of all, the universe.
