I vividly remember my mom, dad and stepdad around Tyler’s bed, each massaging a different foot and hand.Illustrator Sarah Dennis, 13 for ‘Together’ by Alex Miffiin, 12. Published January/February 2001. A note from William Rubel In the next few Newsletters I’d like to re-introduce to you the Stone Soup staff. As the current September issue marks the first anniversary of Emma Wood taking over as Stone Soup’s Editor, and she also has a new book out this week, we’ll begin with Emma. I’ll start with congratulations on her just-published translation from Russian, A Failed Performance: Short Plays & Scenes by Daniil Kharms. Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) was a Soviet poet, writer, and playwright who worked in the surrealist and absurdist literary traditions. Emma only told me her book (co-authored with C. Dylan Bassett) had just been published yesterday morning. I ordered a copy right away! Is surrealist and absurdist Soviet literature something I know anything about? No, I don’t. But I always order books written by my friends and I always learn something. While this is not a young adult title, I hope the many adult readers of the Newsletter will join me in supporting Emma by ordering her book. If you can also write a review on Amazon that will be extra great. Before I say more about Emma, I’d like to just say, thank you, Emma, for the extraordinary work you have put in this past year at Stone Soup. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have you. Thank you from my heart. In addition to being a translator, a poet, Editor-in-Chief here at Stone Soup, and an editor at other literary publications, Emma is a university instructor, a PhD student, and a marathon runner. I encourage all of you to check out Emma’s website. Like you, Emma sends her work to publications hoping to get published. Here are the literary magazines where her poems appear. I posted a link to this interview in which Emma talks about poetry when she first joined Stone Soup. Whether you are a young writer or an adult reader of this Newsletter, please listen to the interview. Even if you don’t understand the entire interview I know that each of you will find something in it. I find it inspiring. What is poetry? Listen to Emma’s answer. I’ll write more about the other people in the team who bring you Stone Soup next week. This week’s drawing and story from the archive Look at the drawing by Sarah Dennis. I mean, really look at it. What I find remarkable is the amount of information conveyed about the the scene around Tyler’s hospital bed. You see Tyler’s face is scraped up–note the big red patch on the right side of his face–and he has stitches above one eye. The story the drawing is linked to is about an awful car crash (it’s scary in parts–but, spoiler warning, everyone is fine in the end). The two figures in the foreground, Tyler’s mother and step-father, are massaging his feet while his father holds one of his hands. Everyone is looking in a different direction. We are observing an intimate family moment in which the participants in the scene are united around the injured Tyler. He is in physical pain. His family are in emotional pain for him. His grey-haired father looks very worried. I also read worry on the face of the man in the left foreground. His mother, with her red fingernails (nice detail) seems to be the calm one, despite the detail of her neck brace, a remnant of her own injuries from the crash. I sense that she may hold the family together through her calm demeanor and practical solutions. Somehow, I sense that she is the one who said, “Let’s massage Tyler’s hands and feet.” Inspired by this, here is your activity for the weekend: sketch a scene that involves an important moment with other people. Think of something from this past week or two where you were involved with two or three other people, united in a common purpose and doing something. It might be a moment in your family, with friends, out in a public place, or at school. I suggest the doing something part of the idea inspired by the strength of the hand gestures we see in Sarah’s drawing. Give thought to where each person is looking when you make your drawing snapshot. And, as always, if you come up with something you really like, please send it to Emma by uploading it on our online submissions form. Until next week Write a book and get it published: a brand new contest Do you think you can write a whole book? This week we announced a brand new contest, in partnership with MacKenzie Press, challenging you to you to do just that. Do you dream of getting it published? Well, if you win this contest, the prize will make that dream come true! The Secret Kids contest invites entries in three age categories, for longer fiction, either illustrated or unillustrated, in any genre. We’ll write more about this contest over the coming months–the deadline for entries is January 1, 2019–and for today we invite you to check out the contest information at our website (click the link above) and think about writing, revising, editing and perfecting your best work in time to submit your entry by the end of the year. Plus, one last reminder about the Concrete Poetry contest: you have until midnight (Pacific time) tonight to get your final entries in! More deadlines! The deadline for recipe submissions for the December food issue is September 30. As I’ve mentioned before, for Stone Soup we are interested in both the recipe and the headnote, the narrative that precedes the recipe that explains why it is important to you, the author. The December issue is not limited to holiday recipes. This week, I purchased the cookbook, The Bread and Salt Between Us: Recipes and Stories from a Syrian Refugee’s Kitchen. I’ve had the book a few days and my daughter and I can say that the recipes are good. But, what makes this book exceptional is the combination of the text and the recipes. Recipes can often tie us to a memory. Perhaps it is the memory of a dish that was a grandparent’s favorite, or a dish that you
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Author Interview: Patricia Newman, author of Plastic Ahoy! talks to Stone Soup blogger Lukas Cooke
Lukas Cooke, our young blogger interested in nature and the environment, recently had the opportunity to read one of Patricia Newman’s books, Plastic Ahoy!: Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and then talk to the author about her books, her writing process and being a published author. Read the interview below! Patricia Newman Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Sea Otter Heroes Zoo Scientists to the Rescue Lukas Cooke: What inspired you to become an author, specifically to write about saving the natural world? Patricia Newman: My husband’s mother first suggested I try writing. I remember the exact moment. I was reading picture books to my one-year old son and four-year old daughter on the sofa. Before that I’d never considered writing as a job. My first books had nothing to do with the natural world. I wrote about railroading slang in Jingle the Brass and fighter pilot slang in Nugget on the Flight Deck. I also wrote several books that editors asked me to write. Through all that writing and researching, I hiked, visited nature centers and zoos, recycled, composted, and saved water, and yet it never occurred to me to write about our environment. An article in my local newspaper planted the initial seed. I read about a group of young scientists who set sail for the North Pacific to study plastic. I was hooked! LC: Did you always dream of becoming a writer? If not, what did you originally plan to be your career? PN: Not at all! I knew I wanted to work with kids and I taught math for a while. Then I wrote computer code for a software company. I also worked for Cornell University, my alma mater, raising money, talking to high school students, and meeting alumni. Although my various jobs required that I communicate through writing, I’d never thought of it as a career. I think I was afraid to share. You see in fifth grade I was bullied. At the time, sharing stories seemed like painting a target on my back. Something about becoming an adult and a parent made the bullies of my childhood powerless. I’m glad I changed my mind, but I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out. LC: What is your favorite tip for new or aspiring writers? PN: Read. All writers are readers. It’s how we soak up the elements of good dialogue or a page-turning plot. It’s how we discover what annoys us about certain stories. (Have you ever read a book where you disagreed with how the character acted?) Reading improves our vocabulary so we can describe settings. It helps us understand that people are complicated so we create characters with complex emotions. Reading stimulates ideas and exercises the imagination. We uncover fascinating aspects of the world. I read because I’m curious. There’s no limit on knowing. Pack it in and let it shape who you will become. LC: It seems like a lot of research went into writing your books. Can you describe the process of how you do the research for a book you’re writing? PN: My books start with a kernel, such as the article about scientists sailing to the North Pacific to study plastic (Plastic, Ahoy!); my daughter’s job as an undergraduate with the Elephant Listening Project at Cornell University (Eavesdropping on Elephants); or a group of girls in a Kenyan village who can’t go to school (Neema’s Reason to Smile). From there I read—online, books, magazines, newspapers—anything my library or the Internet spits out on my topic of choice. I watch videos. I listen to speeches about my topic. I want to be sure the idea is book-worthy and will appeal to kids. I also look at published children’s books to see if anyone else has already written about my topic. Next, I contact the people I’d like to interview. In the case of Neema’s Reason to Smile, I interviewed two women closely involved with a school similar to the one in the book. In the case of my science nonfiction, I interview scientists. These people have jobs to do so they don’t have an unlimited amount of time to spend with me. If they don’t have the time or the interest in working with me, the idea dies. I know that sounds sad, but believe me, there are plenty more ideas to take its place! For Neema’s Reason to Smile I conducted several hours of interviews and watched video of real life kids who go to the school I was writing about. I also reread my travel diary from my long-ago trip to Kenya to remind myself of the smells and colors and light of Africa. I wrote the entire picture book before submitting to publishers. But my environmental science nonfiction is longer. Instead of writing the entire book, I write a proposal to sell my idea to an editor. The proposal includes an overview of my idea, a chapter outline with a brief explanation of what I plan to include in each chapter, and a section on the competition—what’s already out there on the subject and how my book will be different. Once I receive an editor’s go-ahead, I begin researching in earnest. Sometimes I travel, sometimes I don’t. For Sea Otter Heroes my daughter, Elise, and I went to the Elkhorn Slough near Monterey Bay in California. Brent Hughes, the scientist I interviewed, took us on an amazing boat trip down the slough. We saw a lot of marine life, including sea otters, seals, pelicans, herons, jellies, and crabs. I interviewed Brent and some of his colleagues. Elise took photos and asked her own questions. For Zoo Scientists to the Rescue photographer Annie Crawley and I visited three zoos in the US. We interviewed the scientists and took behind-the-scenes tours with them. We touched a rhino and watched an orangutan baby climb all over her mother. Traveling is a blast AND hard work. Scientists are extremely busy and can
Secret Kids contest: write a book and win your own publication deal
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
