I Want to Go to Germany with My Sister by Hala, 11 (Syria), published via the Stone Soup Refugee Project A note from Laura At the time of writing this week’s newsletter, it has been close to two months since Russia invaded Ukraine. We are now faced with yet another refugee crisis, this one with a rate of evacuation of people that is unprecedented in recent history. Currently, one and a half million of those displaced people are children. In light of this evolving disaster, I want to turn your attention to the Refugee Project. The Stone Soup Refugee Project now displays approximately three-hundred pieces of artwork and creative writing on the Refugee Project portal; a number of these have also appeared in the Stone Soup print magazine. If you have not done so recently, I encourage you to view these powerful works. Among the works spotlighted, Parwana Amiri’s poem, “Fly With Me,” so hauntingly captures the desperation and hope of escape. In addition to providing a creative platform to amplify the unheard voices of displaced children around the world through publication, the Refugee Project seeks to also foster the creative development of young refugee writers and artists through innovative workshops and exchange opportunities offered remotely to youth in refugee camps and those involved with our partnering resettlement organizations. Refugee Project Updates Our first series of Stone Soup Refugee Project workshops was recently delivered via Skype to a group of approximately twenty-five young people enrolled at the Angelina Jolie Primary School in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. These workshops were developed in collaboration with Hands On Art Workshops, a key Refugee Project contributor, and focused on “Deep Observation” as a means to develop writing skills and encourage an approach to creative writing and visual art. Writing and artwork derived from these sessions will soon be published on the Refugee Project website. Planning is currently underway for a second workshop series for young people at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, as well as similar programs for young Syrian refugees involved with Karam House, a key Refugee Project contributing organization located in Turkey, and young Afghani writers involved with Echo Refugee Library, a contributing organization in Greece. Logistics and planning for various opportunities for transnational youth engagement are also currently underway. Among them, be on the lookout for the opportunity to participate in a Postcard Exchange program with young refugees at Kakuma Refugee Camp, in collaboration with key Refugee Project contributing organization, the My Start Project. A more detailed update about the Refugee Project will be provided to Refugee Project donors on May 26th-invitation and zoom details to follow. Weekend Project This week, I invite you to take a closer look at the material found on the Stone Soup Refugee Project web portal. Find a piece of writing or artwork that speaks to you… and speak back! In other words, take some time to engage with the selected piece and then try to capture what it conveys to you or how it moves you through your own piece of writing or artwork. As always, if you would like to share your work with an audience of peers, please submit it to us via Submittable! With best wishes, From Stone Soup June 2021 Fly with Me By Parwana Amiri, 16 (Greece) ~Sylvia If the sky is blue, then fly with me! If the sun is bright, then fly with me! If the sea is rough, then fly with! If you have wings, then fly with me! If the wind blows through your wings, then fly with me! Come here and fly with me! ~Parwana The sky is dark, please help me! The sun is sad, please help me! The sea is stormy, please help me! My wings are small, please help me! The butterflies are afraid, please help me! My world is ignored, please help me! I am a refugee, please help me! Please help me! Help me! ~Sylvie & Parwana Never be scared! We are together, with no fear! We are together, full of courage! We are together, with strong fists! We are together, with powerful steps! We are together, to fly and spy in the air! We are together, to make a storm of happiness! We are together, to stand up against all odds! We are together, no one can stop us! Because, We are together, we are together! To read more work from the Refugee Project, click here. 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. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
weekly
Saturday Newsletter: April 30, 2022
Hanging Vines (iPhone 6) By Anna Weinberg, 11 (Washington DC), published in Stone Soup April 2022 A note from William What a week! So much good news! Stone Soup received a $25,000 gift for curriculum development, our site license beta testing program launched, and our Amazon store is now up and running. To begin. One million trillion gazillion thanks to Morgan Stanley, the Andreason Group at Morgan Stanley for a donation of $25,000 for developing curriculum that will be free to all users. This is a game changing donation. With this donation we intend to create the go-to portal for K-12 creative writing programs. Central to our business plan, a solid curriculum platform supports the Stone Soup website for teachers and home schoolers. We need your help! If you would like to help us develop curriculum for teachers and students, please write to me at education@stonesoup.com. I see developing Stone Soup curriculum as a community project. Site License Beta Testing Program Launched! We are giving away 1 year school site license subscriptions ($250 value) to teachers who agree to look over what we have, test it out, and give us feedback through phone calls, emails, and at least one Zoom meeting. We will use our new curriculum development budget to make the Stone Soup website function as the ideal support for creative writing programs. Amazon Store The amazing Chrisy Lo of PVT Creative Solutions has created an Amazon Stone Soup store. You can now go to Amazon to buy single copies of Stone Soup, novels and poetry collections, our anthologies, and our journals and sketchbooks. Being straightforward about how things work in 2022, we were down to a choice. Stop selling books and single issues of Stone Soup or use Amazon. Using Amazon radically simplifies the process of publishing books and it means better service, as well. Please check out our store, and when appropriate, give Stone Soup books as presents! Weekend Project I am sitting in my garden writing this Newsletter on a lovely spring afternoon. As soon as I finish, I will garden. More specifically, I will be building simple trellises and other types of supports for vines. Why? Because I am writing an article about garden vines for the magazine, Mother Earth News. Thus, a real pleasure for me to thinking about this lovely photograph, Hanging Vines by Anna Weinberg. Anna’s photograph rewards study. Let your gaze relax into it. I want you to notice the way in which Anna framed the branches. Notice the horizontal branch near the top of the photograph and then the flowering branches that drop down from that. This photograph has a strong geometrical focus. On an important level, one can say that Anna’s photograph is “about” lines, angles, and the shapes that they create. Moving back from the photograph, I am drawn to the three vertical splashes of color — splashes of white –AND the three window-like spaces framed by the branches. Part of the art of photography is framing your picture to create interesting visual patterns. This weekend, I’d like you to work with framing. I’d like you to find something with a strong geometrical structure. This can be something you find in nature, as Anna found patterns in this plant, but it can also be something in your house — furniture, a patterned floor. I want you to think about how the geometry of what you are looking at — squares, circles, arcs — whatever it is — creates interesting patterns when you look at them through your camera. This project is about framing. I want you to to move around whatever it is that has attracted your eye taking pictures at different angles and different distances. Make it obvious to the viewer what geometric shapes you are focused on. As always, if you make something you really like, then please submit it to Stone Soup via the pink button, below. Until next time, From Stone Soup April 2022 Eyes Full of Wonder By Katie Furman, 10 (Fogelsville, PA) A doorway to the starry sky where the stars shine so bright in the night you can see as clear as daylight the world full of wonder your eyes like a window for your soul grass so green and clean it almost seems as if a dream To read more work from the April issue, including another poem by Katie, click here! 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. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
Weekly Creativity #201: Pick up a Previous Piece of Writing You Didn’t Quite Like and Rewrite it
Pick up a previous piece of writing you didn’t quite like and rewrite it.
