The waiting room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop Illustration by Frances Burnett-Stuart, 13, for “Marcella’s Miracle” by Abigail Johnson, 12. Published in Stone Soup, January/February 2015. A note from William Rubel Jane and Sarah did it! The 2018 Stone Soup Annual is going to print. We will start shipping the last week of November. This year, the Annual comes in at 411 pages and weighs 1.75 pounds! People who know me know that I cry easily. So, yes, I cried when I saw the proof. We made the Annual last year because we didn’t have a print magazine to offer you, so we thought, “Well, we can make the year into a book.” As you all know, we are now back in print (since early October). But it turns out that pulling all the issues together into a single book and adding the best of our online book reviews and blog posts creates something awesome. Truly awesome. The sum is greater than the parts. This is a book to take to bed with you, to take in the car, to take on vacation. Hours of reading and re-reading. Lots of inspiration for your own creative work. In the Annual, you hold in your hands the Stone Soup soup of 2018. November issue out now! The magical, animal, and natural November issue was officially published on our website on Thursday, so those of you with digital subscriptions can go to it now. Digital subscribers will also find PDF copies of Stone Soup on our website. New print subscribers—welcome! Your issue is in the mail. We are sorry it didn’t arrive on the first of the month, but please rest assured it is winging its way to you as you read this newsletter—and December’s copy will be mailed in two weeks, so your next issue will definitely arrive on schedule. Finally, a reminder for everyone: you can buy single issues of this and back issues at our online store, Stonesoupstore.com. William’s Weekend Project For today’s project I want to talk about this evocative drawing of a waiting room. This is a project for both child and adult readers. Most of us experience waiting rooms primarily at the doctor or dentist. While this is a drawing, you could also memorialize a waiting room experience in writing. This image, like most of the art we have been featuring in the newsletter, was originally commissioned as an illustration for a Stone Soup story by our editor emerita, Gerry Mandel. We at Stone Soup, and the larger Stone Soup community, are indebted to Gerry for her fabulous accomplishments drawing such evocative work from so many artists. Look at the window blinds! To me, the single bent blind is a stroke of genius. It transforms this from “a waiting room” to “this waiting room.” In the introduction to the upcoming 2018 Annual, editor Emma Wood mentions “sense of place.” I am sure I’ve written about this idea in previous newsletters. It is the specific observed (or imagined) details that artists and writers bring to their settings that help us engage our imaginations. This drawing offers a treasure trove of observational detail: the bent blind that I’ve mentioned, the art on the wall, the layout of the room, and, of course, the many individual people sitting there, each apparently in their own world, each displaying their own body language. I’d like you to draw, or describe in writing, a place with lots of people. Artists have used photography since photography’s early days in the mid-1800s. So, if you can’t sit someplace to sketch lots of people—like in a waiting room—then consider taking a photograph to remind you of the scene as your draw or write. Note people’s clothing—their costumes, their gestures, the kinds of details that both make each person different from the others and that may convey something about character. The teenager sitting with rounded shoulders staring into a little screen, the rail-straight young woman (is she a dancer?), the man wearing a business suit, and the man in a track suit, and so on. As in this drawing, capture the time and place. Looking back at the drawing or reading what you wrote ten years from now, I hope this creative work triggers your memory: Wow! I remember that! Wow! It looks so 2018! As always, kids age 14 or under, if you think your finished work is publishable, upload it to Emma using our online submissions form. If you are an adult and want to share what you did with me, send it to me by replying to this newsletter. Until next week, Partnership news Secret Kids contest As readers of this newsletter will already know, we are running a contest in partnership with Mackenzie Press: the Secret Kids Contest. All of the details are on our website–suffice to say, that if you are under the age of 18 and working on a long-form piece of writing, you should be thinking about getting it ready to submit by the end of the year to be in with a chance of winning one of the prizes of a publishing contract. Miacademy We have an exciting partnership in place with Miacademy, the interactive learning site for K-8th grade. Writing from Stone Soup is being featured on their site, and Miacademy subscribers have the opportunity to submit their work to us. As part of this partnership, our friends at Miacademy are offering generous discounts to Stone Soup subscribers: 20 to 40 percent off, depending on which type of subscription you purchase. To find out more about Miacademy and explore the various services on offer, visit their website and read the information for parents. If you choose to join, simply enter the code STONESOUP2018 at the checkout to receive your discount. Highlights from the past week online Read the latest content from our book reviewers and young bloggers at Stonesoup.com! We published Sabrina Guo’s inspiring piece, Taking Flight with Soman Chainani, in both our young bloggers and book review sections this week. It isn’t exactly a
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Taking Flight with Soman Chainani
Since I was small, I have been a passionate reader, instantly drawn into stories that could be painted in words. When I discovered chapter books, I remember eagerly awaiting the moment when I could open a book and slip into its vivid colors and images. In an instant, I might feel the brush of rainbow-colored wind on my cheeks or hear the clear sound of river water gliding over rocks. The moment I finished a book, I couldn’t wait to pick up another one to take yet another leap into the world of an author’s imagination where it could be mixed with my own imagination, as if we were telling the story together as I read. This journey has always felt kind of like an instantly departing airplane, except that I never had to worry about how long until the plane reached its final destination. I could just enjoy the journey, and adapt to new places as I went, experiencing love, fear, danger, and courage through the eyes of other characters. And The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani was the first book, in particular, to show me how powerful my imagination was in being able to empathize with experiences that seemed entirely different but still somehow linked to my own. Since discovering The School for Good and Evil in fourth grade, I’ve read it seventeen times, and each time I open it up, I become instantly fascinated by the elaborate personalities of each character and the special powers they possessed, like the ability to cast spells with their glowing fingertips or concoct herbal potions that allowed for shape-shifting and falling in love. I couldn’t believe that a single author had created a world that was full of magic but still felt as real and true as my own life. I became determined to find out everything I could about his background as a writer, and on his website, I learned that not only had all his books had made it onto the New York Times Bestseller list, but his first series had been translated into twenty-seven languages across six different continents and was now being made into a movie by Universal Pictures. I was even more surprised to learn that Soman Chainani found enough time to work on writing his novels and screenplays while still playing tennis competitively in New York City. Up until that day, I had assumed that to be really good at something, you had to give everything else up in order to reach your goal. At least that was how I’d always viewed playing violin myself. Starting when I was small, I’ve devoted myself to practicing up to three hours every day, and ever since joining an international string ensemble last year, I’ve had to spend most weekends and at least two nights a week rehearsing. Soman Chainani was the first person to open up my mind to the possibility of writing a novel despite all of my other activities. If he had managed to make his dreams happen as a writer, filmmaker, and athlete, then maybe I could balance my passions for writing and music too. I decided that I would find time to write. My goal was to write for at least twenty minutes a day a few times week in the morning before school or after I finished my homework in the evening. I started off by writing poems and short pieces in response to writing prompts, and then slowly worked my way up to my first fantasy fiction novel. I didn’t know where to start with the story, exactly, but I did know I wanted my new grey tabby kitten named Daisy to be the heroine of my series. I decided to follow Soman Chainani’s lead and create my own imaginary world. I set the story in a large floating city named Skyworld that hovers above New York. In the opening pages, Daisy embarks on a journey to find her long-lost brother, Jacob. Along the way, she meets a wide cast of characters, many of them inspired by those found in The School for Good and Evil. But when I finished the first draft, a teacher told me I would need to ask Soman Chainani’s permission to use several of his character names in my own work. I was scared and nervous to email a famous author out of the blue, but relieved when just a few weeks later, Soman wrote me back, encouraging me to use the names of his characters as I continued writing. I was overjoyed to know that I wouldn’t have to change my story and could move forward in plotting the next story I had in mind for these characters, in working toward creating my very own series. Looking back, I realize that Soman Chainani has inspired me in more ways than one. Not only has he inspired my desire to write, but he has shown me that being an author also means being there for your readers. When some authors become famous, they might not take time out of their packed days to answer emails or requests, but Soman isn’t this way. He seems humble, kind, and supportive of his fans, and he wants them to feel motivated to do the hard work of writing an original story. If I become a published author one day, I hope to be there for my readers too, answering their questions and encouraging them to follow their dreams. Soman reminds me that being an author is about small, daily habits that add up in big ways. He has taught me that writing isn’t about making money or becoming famous, but it is about sitting down to make the time to write no matter what. I realized that as long as I can carve out this space, not only am I setting my mind free to build exciting new worlds out of my imagination, but in the process I might inspire others to do the same.
Saturday Newsletter: October 27, 2018
I wanted to run and bide, but my feet were cemented to the ground Illustration by Kamiye Hoang Mai Davis,13, for “Haunted Mansion” by Lyla Lawless,13. Published in Stone Soup, July/August 2007. A note from William Rubel There was an article this week in the British newspaper The Guardian about a group of teenagers in Wales who decided they wanted to make a movie out of a story by the super-famous American author Stephen King. They wrote to him asking whether they could purchase rights to a story for a price they could afford—and he responded immediately: “Yes! I’ll sell you non-commercial rights for $1.00.” You can read the story here. Why do I bring this up? Three reasons. First, to remind you of what you already know—a story or novel can be the starting point for the same story to be told a different way. Today, this different way is most often in the form of a film, though making a play, dance, opera, or podcast is also an option. The second reason is to remind you that when you rework someone else’s creative work, you need to ask permission if you intend to perform the work publicly. And the third reason is to remind you that because you are children, you will often be given permission to do something that grownups might not. Stephen King is unlikely to give me permission to make a film of any of his work for $1.00. So, if you and a group of friends or a club you are part of at your school have something ambitious in mind—like making a movie of a story by a famous author—don’t give up before you start. Write for permission and see what happens! William’s Weekend Project That brings me to the project for today. I want you to take all or part of an existing creative work—“all” would be the complete work, like the complete novel, and “part” might be a chapter or a section—and turn it into something else. That something else could be turning a paragraph into an illustration or turning an illustration into a paragraph. If there is a piece of music that means a lot to you, you could turn it into a dance or a poem—or even a drawing or painting. What I am encouraging you to do here is explore the strengths of different literary and artistic genres. What can you say with words that you cannot say in in a drawing? What can you say in a drawing that you cannot say in words? What can you say in a dance that remains true to a particular piece of music but also expresses something that the music cannot? I think you get the idea. As always, if you come up with something that you are particularly excited about, please send it to our editor, Emma Wood, via the online submission page. Until next week, Great news about anthologies! I have previously mentioned that we are in the process of revising and reissuing the Stone Soup anthologies. I can announce today that the first revised volumes are at the printer, and the rest will follow soon. Joe Ewart, our London-based designer, has just posted the covers to his website. Click on the Stone Soup Book of Animal Stories cover to pull up the rest of the covers. While you are at Joe’s site, then you may want to look around at his other work. Joe is also the designer for Stone Soup’s print issues. Joe brings to Stone Soupa striking, modern-yet-classic design that says to the world “What our writers and artists have to say matters.” My colleague Jane Levi has revised the anthologies by merging earlier editions together—for some topics we had multiple versions of anthologies with the same theme—and by adding material to further round out volumes. For example, 50 poems have been added to the poetry volume! Jane went all the way back to the first issues of Stone Soupin 1973 to find material. What she noticed in doing this is that the quality of Stone Soup’s stories and poems has been remarkably consistent from the start. While I know that those of you writing for Stone Soupare conscious that you’re just starting out as writers, Jane was struck by how much of the work is worth reading, full stop. She found herself sending great stories to her adult friends and having them tell her they had passed them on to their friends, super impressed with the quality. In other words, many of the works are so good that they’d be a credit to any publisher or age group. That is what Stone Soupis about—showing that kids can be creative on a level that does not require readers to downgrade their expectations. In other words, we are about publishing great literature—full stop. Partnership news Miacademy We have an exciting partnership in place with Miacademy, the interactive learning site for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Writing from Stone Soup is being featured on their site, and Miacademy subscribers have the opportunity to submit their work to us as well. As part of this partnership, our friends at Miacademy are offering generous discounts to Stone Soup subscribers: 20–40 percent off, depending on which type of subscription you purchase. To find out more about Miacademy and explore the various services on offer, visit their website and read the information for parents. If you choose to join, simply enter the code STONESOUP2018 at the checkout to receive your discount. Secret Kids contest As readers of this newsletter will already know, we are running a contest in partnership with Mackenzie Press: the Secret Kids Contest. All of the details are on our website—suffice to say that if you are under the age of 18 and working on a long-form piece of writing, you should be thinking about getting it ready to submit by the end of the year. If you do, you’ll have the chance to win a publishing contract for your very own book! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our book reviewers and young
