Update as of April 22, 2019: Congratulations to the contestants shortlisted in the Secret Kids Book Contest. Stone Soup is no longer involved in the process but we’re very excited for the shortlisted contestants and wish them the best of luck in the judging process. To follow the contest’s next stages, and to ask any questions about the contest, please visit the Nancy Gee Book Facebook page. Original Contest announcement (contest now closed) Stone Soup is working with MacKenzie Press, publisher of The Secret Series of children’s books, on an exciting new book-writing and book-illustrating contest. The winners of this children’s writing competition will be awarded their own book deal. Their books will be professionally published by MacKenzie Press, and offered for sale and distribution in bookstores. Aspiring young authors and illustrators can submit anything from children’s picture books, early readers books, middle grade fiction and chapter books, and young adult novels, entered in one of three age ranges: elementary school, middle school, and high school. Any form–from from text-only to illustrated book to graphic novel– or genre–from realistic fiction to fantasy or sci-fi–will be considered. Manuscripts will be judged by the MacKenzie Press publisher and Stone Soup editors. Finalists will then be chosen from each entry category who will work with MacKenzie Press to edit and rework their manuscripts. One winner(s) will be chosen from each age range. Categories: There are three entry categories, based on the author/illustrator’s age. Entry age is based on your age as at September 1, 2018. Elementary: Grades 1-5 (ages 5-10) Middle school: Grades 6-8 (ages 11-13) High school: Grades 9-12 (ages 14-18) Length: Dependent on type of book and target audience. See details below and at the contest entry page. Deadline: February 1, 2019, 11:59 p.m. (Pacific time). Entry form: You must enter using the official contest entry form here (scroll to the bottom of that page). Please note that page still shows the old deadline date of January 1, but you will still be able to submit your entry up to the new closing date of February 1. Entry fee: $30 per entry. Finalists’ shortlist announced: April 15, 2019. Winners announced: June 15, 2019. Prizes: The following prize will be awarded to one winner in each of the three categories: A book publishing deal from publisher MacKenzie Press. A cash prize of $1,000 A one-year subscription to Stone Soup Questions: If you have any pre-submission questions, please write to the contest organizers: contest@anancygeebook.com. More information Some of the types of book you might consider submitting: Children’s picture books Reader age range: 2-6 years old Page count: 20-32 pages long Word count: 0-600 words We will accept: text-only stories, stories with illustrations and text, or illustrations-only (editor will assign illustrator to winner) Early reader books Reader age range: 4-8 years old Page count: 40-80 pages long Word count: 100-2500 words We will accept: stories with illustrations and text, or text-only stories (editor will assign illustrator to winner) Chapter books Reader age range: 6-12 years old Page count: 80-180 pages long Word count: 4,000 for younger readers, up to 12,000 for advanced readers We will accept: stories with illustrations and text, or text-only stories (editor will assign illustrator to winner) Middle grade fiction Reader age range: 12-16 years old Page count: 80-240 pages long Word count: 20,000-60,000 words We will accept: stories with text-only (editor will assign illustrator to winner) Young Adult fiction novels Reader age range: 14+ years old Page count: 80-240 pages long Word count: 40,000-80,000 words (more for fantasy novels) We will accept: text only
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
‘Misted’: music for saxophone and piano, by Abe Effress, 11
Abe Effress, 11, playing saxophone in Marina Del Rey I have been playing saxophone since I moved to Los Angeles from the mountains of Colorado four years ago. This year, I wrote a piece for piano and submitted it to the Composers Today program for young composers. I became very interested in making music, and have started to realize it is a passion that I want to pursue. I decided to really challenge myself with this new song, “Misted.” This is the first time I have composed music for two instruments, piano and saxophone. The saxophone that you hear was inspired by a spider that has been living outside of my windowsill in the room I share with my brother. This song is in a minor key because for one day the spider was not there and it made me sad when I thought my new friend had gone away. Many of my creations, especially my writing, are dark and gnarled, like the branches of my mind. In this song, I also included my love for music production in the form of a beat, which I added in GarageBand. When I started making songs on GarageBand this summer, my parents decided that I could get an Instagram account for my music, fiction stories, drawings, and any other art created by me. The positive response I have been receiving from real professionals in the music production industry has motivated me to work even harder. Here is a link to the full audio with the piano and drums; and this is the link to me playing the saxophone part out on the Pacific Ocean in Marina Del Rey, and to more of my work on You Tube. There is a video of the spider on my Instagram page, @wearing_a_wig. I really hope you enjoy “Misted.” I did my best to write down the notes for both instruments even though the piano is naturally in a different key than the alto sax. Thank you for taking the time to check out my work! From the Stone Soup Editors: Do you play saxophone? Download a printable copy of Abe’s composition, ‘Misted’, and try playing it yourself. Leave a comment for Abe below, and if you do try his music yourself, send us a recording of yourself playing his piece. Enjoy!
Saturday Newsletter: September 8, 2018
MaCall, I don’t feel like I’m on a magical island”. Illustrator Zoe Hall, 12 for Sisters by Cameron Manor, 11. Published March/April 2010. A note from William Rubel There are four projects for today, one new one and three that we’ve been reminding you about for a little while: a new Instagram project, a recipe with headnotes for the December issue, a last call for the Concrete Poetry contest, and a look back to summer journals. Instagram #whatsinmybackpack I’d like to encourage all of you to follow our Instagram account and to contribute to it. We have images from our archive and images related to current content, and many of you recently sent us images for our #whereiwrite campaign. Thank you! You will see those entries when you go to go to our Instagram account. We are now starting a new hashtag program. We know that nearly every one of you wears a backpack to and from school. We want to know what’s inside! Please send us photographs of #whatsinmybackpack. There is an entry category for this Instagram project here, on the Stone Soup online submissions page. Whether you include the pack itself in the photograph is up to you, but I think it will make a more interesting photograph if it is included. I also think that however you compose it, you will find your own photograph more interesting as the years pass. It has been more than forty years since I unpacked my seventh-grade pack for the last time. It would be amazing to have a photograph of what had been in it! Recipes: December food issue deadline extended to September 20! Thank you to those of you who have sent in your recipes. We are working through them and will get back to the recipe writers very soon. We also have some really nice writing about food (or related to food), without recipes, thank you! To the rest of you—OK. We get it. This is not a good time to think about holiday cooking. I know it is September, and December and holiday eating seems far away. But, we have deadlines to meet, so we have to think about it now. Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Years—December is holiday time in lots of places. That means family visiting time. It is eating time. It is the time of year when nearly every family is in the kitchen, cooking. So. What foods mean something to your family? Favorite holiday dishes—favorite cookies—favorite main dishes—favorite homemade drinks and snacks. Or, maybe it isn’t even a food you like very much, but it is a fixture in your family and so has some good stories surrounding it. Remember: we are not a food magazine, and we are international. Just because the issue is being published in December, it doesn’t have to only contain winter recipes for a cold climate—you can send us anything at all, and it will be online in all the other months of the year too. As I’ve said in previous newsletters and as you can see by looking at last year’s food issue, all recipes must be preceded with a story that talks about the recipe or the food in some way. A great recipe without a great story won’t get published, but something the other way around just might! Concrete Poetry We extended the deadline to midnight, September 15. Poems are coming in—thank you!—so there will not be a further deadline extension. First prize is $50, second prize is $25, and the third prize is $10. I’ve written about this contest in previous Newsletters and you all know the drill. Go to the submissions page, find Concrete Poetry, and click on “more” to read the contest guidelines, or go straight to submit here. Journals! I have not forgotten about the Summer Journals. We have a few in the wings waiting to go online. Are any more of you ready to share yours? Please send me images of a few pages from your journal, along with a passage that you’d like to share. Do this by replaying to this email, or submit to our blog category. I’ll be writing more about journals in another Newsletetter. Until next week What’s behind the paywall? Here is the business news. We at Stone Soup are all extremely pleased with the number and quality of book reviews being sent to us each week. There are new reviews being posted weekly. There are also new blog posts every week. We love the work these Stone Soup writers are doing and feel they are good enough to be folded into the larger Stone Soup literary project. Up to now, access to the book reviews and blogs has been free. And, they are still free today! However, I have just asked our programmer to include them into the Stone Soup paywall so there will be a limit on how many you can read for free. So, non-subscribers—please check out the extraordinary work being done by our reviewers and bloggers. Today, I read the two book reviews—of To Kill a Mockingbird and Beasts Made of Night—posted this week by our young reviewers. They are both interesting reviews—very topical in these turbulent times. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! This week, it’s all about books. You’ve read lots of great book reviews by Vandana R over the past few months. This week, she has written a lovely piece about her book collection, and why some of her books mean so much to her. Are you a Jane Austen fan too? And which books are in your backpack (or locker?) Don’t miss Mirembe Mubanda’s topical review of the exciting and thought-provoking Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi. Have you also read this book? Leave a comment and tell Miremebe and us what you thought. And, as William mentioned above, we have Maya Viswanathan’s review of the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. If you haven’t read it yet, be inspired by her review. If you have, leave her a comment on the blog! “MaCall!” I screeched, snatching up my favorite
