Nest Building (Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200) By Sage Millen, 13 (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), published in Stone Soup June 2022 A note from Emma I want to start off this week’s newsletter with some good news and congratulations: Anya Geist’s novel, Born on the First of Two, was selected as a finalist in the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Young Author (Under 25) category. We are so proud of Anya and thrilled this wonderful novel is getting some recognition. Take this as a reminder to add Anya’s book to your summer reading list, and to be on the lookout for new copies with the finalist sticker on the cover! This also reminded me that I have been meaning to share a bit of book news with you all for some time now. In addition to my work as editor of Stone Soup and as a writer, I also work with high school students on their college application essays. And last spring, I published The Complete College Essay Handbook, a practical guide to writing college essays that I co-wrote with my colleague. Writing a practical guide was fun, and also more challenging than I expected. The most rewarding part (aside from being done, hah!) was that putting my process and advice down on paper not only reinforced what I already knew but actually pushed me to refine and improve our process. Writing remains the most powerful I know for thinking through ideas and improving upon them–whether they are the loftiest or the most trivial. Anyway, I am proud of the book and ask you to please consider recommending it to any teenage friends or relatives about to embark on this process, or to any high school English teachers or counselors you may know. Finally, since the subject of this newsletter has been books, I want to take the opportunity to remind you all that our 2022 Book Contest is still open for submissions. It closes on the 22nd of August. I know many of you began your books weeks ago, but if you are still interested–it’s not too late to start working on one to submit this year. We always focus on the fact that good writing takes time and multiple drafts. And sometimes it does. But sometimes it comes very quickly, and that doesn’t make it less or worse than something that takes more time! “First thought, best thought,” as Allen Ginsberg used to say. More than once, I have written something quickly then revised it and revised it, only to realize after a few months that the first draft was the better version. (I am not against revision by any means; many times, I have had the reverse experience–of completely rewriting in revision.) So, for those of you who are curious and excited at the possibility of writing a book–it’s not too late! Happy writing! Anthropology of the Everyday: The Art of Creative Nonfiction, June 13-16 with Laura Moran Do you like writing about your life experiences? Would you like to learn some techniques for making your nonfiction writing more compelling and creative? In this class you will learn a method of personal writing, sometimes used by anthropologists, that combines storytelling with writing about the details of your own everyday life. Students will practice a variety of Ethnographic Writing techniques, from self-reflection, to gathered observation, interviews, and investigation. Students will also participate in an artist-led activity to create a piece of illustrated artwork of everyday life, designed to accompany their ethnographic writing. Refugee Project Half Baked Art Collaboration, June 20 & 22 This workshop will allow participants to work on a piece of artwork in collaboration with a student living in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. The dates for this set of two workshops are 6/20/22 (9-11am PT) and 6/22/22 (9-10am PT). From Stone Soup June 2022 The Hummingbird Whisperer By Michael Chao, 13 (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) It was a lazy day in the month of May when I got that so-memorable phone call from my sometimes-bothersome twin sister, May. “Michael, hurry, hurry, come over!” screamed my sister, who was practicing tennis with Mom at a nearby tennis court. “Why? I’m busy!” I shouted back. “There’s two baby birds on the court. I think they’re still alive.” My ears perked up, and instantaneously my irritating sister became my wonderful sibling. “I’m coming right now!” I dragged Dad off the couch and made him drive me to the tennis courts. When we arrived, I saw Mom and May standing over two orphaned rufous hummingbirds, barely a week old. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was my first time seeing hummingbird nestlings. They were only about the size of a stick of gum, pink-colored, and naked, with eyes closed. They shivered and ruffled what little down they had, trying to shelter from the ocean breeze. Delicately, I cupped them into the palm of my hand while using my other hand to block the wind. It was so nerve-racking to hold something so small and delicate. After gently placing the nestlings into a small insect cage padded with tissue paper, I began looking for their nest, hoping to find their mother, who was probably frantically seeking her young ones out. Along the boundary of the tennis court was a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence with ivy covering it from top to bottom. The ivy had grown thick, and probably hadn’t been cut back in years, which would make finding their home, a nest about the size of silver dollar, an almost impossible task. But the “needle in a haystack” chance of finding their nest didn’t deter me. I desperately wanted these little nestlings to live. I searched everywhere—every branch, nook, and cranny of ivy along the borders of the tennis court. After a couple of nerve-racking hours, I finally found the nest. It was located high up near the tree canopy, where neither my father, who is six-foot, three inches tall, nor I could reach. But mother bird was nowhere to be found. I
Anya Geist
Saturday Newsletter: December 18, 2021
Bridge in the Snow, Fujifilm X-T1 | Claire Lu, 13 (Portola Valley, CA), published in Stone Soup December 2021 A note from Sarah Happy weekend! I hope everyone is having a calm and restful December. If you haven’t had a chance to read Anya Geist’s Born on the First of Two, which was published on the first of this month, I want to direct you to the excerpt we published from the novel in our December issue (you can also scroll down to the end of this email to read it). We also have a lovely interview on our YouTube channel with Anya and Abhi Sukhdial, (which you can view above) where Abhi and Anya talk about character development, the worlds that Anya created in the novel, real-life inspiration, and so much more. If after watching the interview you find yourself hungry for more, there is a longer, more exclusive look inside Anya and her process writing Born on the First of Two that you can view, here. Coinciding with the interview, we have also launched a book page for Born on the First of Two that includes the interview as well as April Yu’s five star review of the novel. Keep visiting the page for other news—reviews, awards, events—regarding Anya and Born on the First of Two! Anya begins with a powerful prologue that draws the reader in by vividly describing a character’s troubling recurring dream. Without knowing any specifics about the plot, the reader learns of the dream (or is it perhaps a memory?) that plagues this character. As readers, we begin to wonder: what could this mean? Who are these dark figures? And why did her parents leave? This compelling beginning of Anya’s novel reminded me of a recent topic covered by William in one of his Saturday Workshops: origin stories. In William’s workshop, the young writers were challenged to imagine the beginnings of a character who might go on to do significant things. In the post summarizing the workshop, you can find examples from participating writers to serve as examples, if you need them. My challenge for you this weekend is to combine the dream concept from Born on the First of Two and the idea of origin stories. First, come up with a character’s life arc, from beginnings that could be considered quite modest, through a life that takes a surprising turn and challenges the expectations for this character’s trajectory. But crucially, have this character be followed by a memory or dream, whether faded or lucid, of an event that happened in the beginning of their life. How does this dream continue to haunt the character? And what does the dream reveal to the reader about the character’s beginnings? Perhaps it is a tragic dream or memory, as in the case of Born on the First of Two. Or maybe it is simply embarrassing– school children laughing at one of their peers. Think about what you want to convey about the character’s motivations and how an event can shape a person’s life. If you’re inspired to create anything based on this weekend writing activity, please consider submitting it to Stone Soup—we love to read your submissions. Until next time, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest winners! Our December Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #181 (provided by Molly Torinus, Stone Soup contributor), which challenged participants to write a creation story for a fictional world of their own imagination. For the third consecutive month we set a record for number of submissions, all of them worthy of recognition. Molly’s ingenious prompt led to a breadth of creativity, with creation stories for fully realized worlds containing mathematical sets with biblical influence to anthropomorphic clouds to a dance recital gone wrong. In the end, we selected our usual five winners and five honorable mentions. As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! Congratulations to our Winners and Honorable Mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “Darkness” by Kimberly Hu, 9 (Lake Oswego, OR) “Adventure to the Lost Kingdoms” by Tang Li, 9 (Palmetto Bay, FL) “The Beginning, the End, the Rebirth” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “The Fearful Cloud” by Julia Ma, 11 (Portland, OR) “The World of the Grand Staff” by Maya Mourshed, 10 (Silver Spring, MD) Honorable Mentions “One Dance” by Audrey Billington, 10 (Hillsboro, IL) “Math: The Origin” by Lucas Hinds, 13 (Lenoir City, TN) “The Creation of Warland” by Sophie Li, 11 (Palo Alto, CA) “Eternalia” by Brooke Negin, 11 (Kanata, ON, Canada) “The Fourth Dawn” by Divya Srinivasan, 12 (Sammamish, WA) Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Super reviewer April Yu, 13, couldn’t get enough of Anya Geist’s debut novel Born on the First of Two! Don’t miss the latest Book Club Report from Laura Moran, which details the group’s meeting with acclaimed author Lucy Worsley! Young Blogger Ismini Vasiloglou, 12, wrote a glowing review of Tristan Hui’s novel The Other Realm, which won the Stone Soup Book Contest 2020. From Stone Soup December 2021 An Excerpt from Born on the First of Two By Anya Geist, 14 (Worcester, MA) Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. The girl’s breathing was labored and fast, the way it always was when she had this dream, this memory. It was a strange dream; it seemed to linger in her mind, tickling its edges like light in her peripheral vision. She’d had it for as long as she could remember, but she never became quite used to it; every time it came to her in her sleep, she found herself unsettled. The sky was light blue, and the sun radiated its warmth down on the Earth. Birds chirped contentedly in verdant, leafy trees while bees hummed along as they flew from flower to flower, careful not to damage the soft, delicate petals. The girl—then just a baby—sat on the
Born on the First of Two by Anya Geist
Welcome to the Book Page for Born on the First of Two, a fantasy novel by Anya Geist, age 14, named editor’s choice of the 2020 Stone Soup Annual Book Contest, published on December 1, 2021 by Children’s Art Foundation–Stone Soup Inc. Awards 2022 Indie Book Awards – Finalist Born on the First of Two was named a finalist by the Indie Book Awards in the Young Author (Written by Under Age 25) category! Currently celebrating their 15th year and entering their 16th, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest International Book Awards Program recognizing and honoring the top independently published books of the year. Purple Dragonfly Awards – Honorable Mention Shortly after being named a finalist by the Indie Book Awards in their young author (under 25) category, Born on the First of Two was given the distinction of Honorable Mention in the Young Author (Fiction) category by the Purple Dragonfly Awards! The Purple Dragonfly Book Award Contest is a worldwide book competition that began in 2009 to celebrate the best in children’s books in 56 categories. Press, Interviews, & Events 2021 Key to the City! After Anya did a reading and presentation at Worcester Bookshop on December 12 in the presence of the mayor and superintendent of public schools, among others, she was awarded the Key to the City for writing and publishing Born on the First of Two. Go Anya! Enjoy some photos taken of the event, below. Interview with Stone Soup contributor and winner of the Stone Soup Book Contest 2019 Abhi Sukhdial, 13 In this shorter interview, Abhi and Anya talk about all things Born on the First of Two, from her deliberate normalization of “The Land of the Clouds” to her emphasis on character development to what she wants her readers to take away from the novel. For a longer, more personal look inside Anya’s life and her process writing Born on the First of Two, click here. Reviews Review by April Yu, 13 We have lived in this world for so long that we often forget to notice its beauties and terrors. Although a blossoming of flowers on a tree branch or the putrid smoke of factory pollution might be perfectly normal to us, there’s something incredibly special about them in different ways. In Born on the First of Two, Anya Geist crafts a otherworldly society that views the Earth with exactly this unique perspective, for this society lives above the clouds. The Land of the Clouds is a bustling, ever-moving network of people above the clouds. Although Maya should be just another eleven-year-old living in the Land, there’s always been something amiss in her life. Perhaps it’s because her parents mysteriously disappeared when she was young. While Maya loves the aunt she lives with, she can’t help the tension between them as her curiosity about her real parents grows. When Maya’s history teacher unintentionally drops a clue about Maya’s identity, however, everything changes. Suddenly, Maya is convinced that she is the one in a prophecy destined to fight a group of evil people named the OCT. And it adds up—on the back of her locket, the ones her parents gave her, is a street name on Earth: 15 Harding Street. In her eyes, this can’t be a coincidence. Now, Maya must embark on a journey to Earth to discover the importance of the elusive 15 Harding Street. Between “motion sickness” when she time-travels throughout Earth’s history to deadly voices preying on her, Maya is on a race against all odds to figure out who she and her parents really are—if the OCT don’t intercept her first. Geist’s debut novel is a riveting blend of bildungsroman and familial love, highlighted by the science fiction elements! It was powerful getting to see not only Maya’s self-exploration and development, but how much her aunt and her best friend, Scarlett, loved her as well. Although Maya felt alone and small for much of her journey on Earth, there were two people trying to find her the entire time. Although this is a girl from the Land of the Clouds, I felt like I could resonate with her so deeply in this aspect. Ah, Geist’s writing was simply delightful! The vivid description, especially of Maya’s time-traveling process, was a spelling series of events that truly allowed me to visualize the scene. It felt like I was there with Maya, seeing the gray, frothy beach and the Tunnel of Time right beside her. I also loved the idea of people living above the clouds, operating in tight-knit communities and schools similar to ours, but in an entirely different environment. I was, however, hoping for more world-building. It was unclear what the citizens of the Land of the Clouds looked like, what they did every day, et cetera, so it was difficult for me to understand the difference between people on the Land and people on Earth. In turn, when Maya visited Earth and expressed awe in everything, it made me confused about what was so strange to her. The lack of concrete world-building caused a sort of disconnect between the reader and the character at times. Overall, this was just a mind-blowing novel. Geist is such a promising writer who infuses heart and hope into her characters, no matter how dire their situations may be. Submerge yourself in this classic tale of soul-searching and internal courage—it won’t disappoint!
