Beyond the Horizon (iPhone 12 Pro) by Aditi Nair, 13; published in Stone Soup September 2022 A note from William Rubel Dear Friends – I would like to announce the opening of our 2022–2023 Fiftieth Anniversary Drive. In the closing months of this year, and throughout next year, we would like to gather our community of Stone Soup supporters and donors to see us on our way to the next fifty years. Our goal for this drive between now and December 2023 is $125,000. It is a lot! But that amount will provide us with the foundation we need to thrive in the decades to come. Many of us have a set of charities that are important to us and to our families. If you have the means, then I ask you to discuss with your family making Stone Soup one of your primary charities for this year and next. If any of you would like to speak with me directly, then please write to me. I’d be happy to talk to you about Stone Soup and our plans for the future. Thank you. Until next time, William’s Weekly Project I am taken with Aditi Nair’s photograph, Beyond the Horizon. I’ve read that one of the biggest differences between how we are now, we of the mobile phone era, and how we used to be is that we spend less time doing nothing. Less time thinking. We don’t just stand in line at the grocery, we pull out our phones. All of us, of all ages, do this! The title of Aditi’s photograph evokes the unphotographable—a place that cannot be captured on camera and can only exist in our imaginations, our dreams. A place beyond what we can see. The photograph offers us a rare opportunity to ponder. Let yourself be drawn in by this photograph. Spend some time with it. Let your eye wander the vast expanse of water to the point where sky and water converge on the horizon, beyond which is a place of infinite possibility. Aditi invites our contemplation through the placement of the figure looking out to sea. The boy in the photograph offers us a point of entry and helps us see ourselves standing there, looking, and absorbing the moment. I have been focusing my newsletter projects on photography because now almost everyone has a camera, either a stand-alone camera or one in a phone. I want you to find something to photograph that leads to a mystery—something that cannot be wholly captured by the lens of your camera. I will say no more. This is a very big challenge. Good luck! And, as usual, if you like what you achieve, please submit it to Stone Soup. Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.
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How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #48: Prose Poetry
An update from our forty-eighth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 5, plus some of the output published below For this week’s workshop, we focused on prose poetry, which we defined as a prose composition that demonstrates the logic and characteristics common to poetry. The first thing we did was a favorite exercise of Conner’s: he asked that we try and write a “bad” poem. After the exercise, we read “On the Train” by Lydia Davis, “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter” by Mark Strand, “I Am the Last” by Charles Simic, “Man with Red Hair” by Daniil Kharms, and “Information” by David Ignatow. All of these prose poems we characterized as feeling like excerpts from larger stories, or the beginning of a short story—they felt like they should keep going. The Challenge: Write a prose poem. If you feel stuck, write a story that feels like its an excerpt from a larger story but isn’t. Or you could write the beginning of a short story but cut it off before it really starts going. Or, take the “bad” poem from the beginning of workshop and turn it into a longer prose poem. The Participants: Allie, Emma, Anushka, Benedetta, Arjun, Tate, Robert, Aditi, Russell, Ella, Samantha, Alice, Josh, Anna, Savi Open House & Untitled Emma Hoff, 10 Open House An old photo, containing a memory. Aww, they say, beholding it. One day, it’s gone. They move on to another photo. Aww, they say again. It goes on like this, and, eventually, only the abstract painting is left. They study it. There’s silence. They hesitate. And then they say, aww. You dump salt on their heads as they walk into the kitchen and pet the frying pan. Everything is gone. The house is just a hollow box that you sit in. There are no walls, but you are enclosed by something. More and more of them come in. Aww, they say, patting your head. Untitled I’m watching the man in the corner, sipping tea that I made for him. He doesn’t remember. He’s too busy watching it, and I don’t want to tell him who he really is – I’m also afraid. Every noise startles me, and I feel like I want to go back inside. It’s cold. The door is locked. I know he won’t hear me knock. I sit down on the steps, and suddenly, in front of me, there’s a pineapple. On one side of my head is a star, and on the other side is a bird. The Thing is gone. It didn’t really mean anything anyway. It was just a plot twist.
Weekly Creativity #228 | Flash Contest #49: Write a Story where a Character Confronts Their Worst Fear
Write a story where a character confronts their worst fear.
