Go to a safe place outdoors, sit somewhere, and close your eyes. Spend several minutes listening for all the sounds you can hear, and pay close attention to what you can smell in the air. When you open your eyes again, write some notes. Later, use those notes to write a poem or a personal narrative about your experience of the place through those two senses (smell and hearing).
weekly
Saturday Newsletter: September 11, 2021
BlueJay (Watercolor) By Zoe Campbell, 11 (San Francisco, CA) & published in the September 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from Emma Good morning, everyone! I’d like to thank William for his wonderful video celebrating the publication of Tristan’s novel last week. I have written about her novel a number of times—but in short, it is truly a wonderful read and an excellent book. I am so excited to share it with you and encourage you to go support this young author by buying your copy now. Refugee Project Fundraiser Overall, we are so thrilled at the response we’ve had to our refugee project fundraiser. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far! As further incentive, we’d like to announce that Spencer and Sabrina Guo—a former Stone Soup contributor and intern who was instrumental in launching the project—have generously offered to make a $3,000 matching donation. Thank you, Spencer and Sabrina! Classes Classes began today! Thank you to everyone who signed up and showed up. We are so exciting to spend this fall making art with you. For those of you who missed the initial call, please know that there is still space to sign up and that classes will be prorated accordingly. Weekend Project Right now, I’d like you to scroll down and read Benjamin Ding’s poem “Materialism.” . . . . . . Okay, welcome back. I love how this poem so perfectly pinpoints the absurdity of the world we live in—a world where we worry about our houses and work hard to make them livable while ignoring our larger home, the Earth, and all of its incredible inhabitants. Why do we spend money to repair an air conditioner, a machine that is itself contributing to the extinction of species like the Asian elephant, when we could get rid of the AC and donate that money to an animal conservation project? Benjamin calls this phenomenon “materialism.” Materialism is simply when our desire to buy and own things is greater than our desire to accrue experiences and strengthen relationships. In the US, we have a very materialistic society: many people work very hard so they can earn money and buy things. The time they spend working is time they cannot spend with their family or friends, or exploring new places, or reading books they love, or wondering about “species / on the verge of extinction.” While it is very hard to go against the current of mainstream culture, I urge you to try! As for your weekend project: I invite you to create a work inspired by a concept. This concept could be “materialism,” as in Benjamin’s poem, or it could be something totally different—maybe even one you don’t even understand, like string theory! It can also be something simpler, such as culture, family, happiness, love, time, reality, sanity, safety, or work. Try to think about what these things actually are to you versus what they are understood to be in our culture—and then write (or draw) around those ideas. Until next week, Back-to-School Sale Through 11:59pm Pacific Time, September 15th, take 25% all annual subscriptions when you use the code SCHOOL21 at checkout! Refugee Project Dear friends and supporters of Stone Soup, Since the launch of the Refugee Project, we have partnered with seven organizations providing on-the-ground support to children living in refugee camps, as well as those resettled in host countries. Through these partnerships, we have collected over 300 pieces of artwork and writing by refugee youth. These creative works are currently on display in our newly created web portal for the project, which you can explore here. As we have said many times before, the media so often portrays refugee youth as the subject of a narrative. The Stone Soup Refugee Project provides a platform for these young people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. To make this vision a reality, we need your help. We have set ourselves a target goal of $10,000 to pilot the program. These funds will go toward the development of workshops delivered to young people in refugee camps, the facilitation of creative exchanges between young people, and the work of collecting and publishing more material on the Refugee Project website. In addition, funds will be used to support our Refugee Project contributing organizations and the young people they serve in the ways in which they deem valuable, such as the purchase of supplies and possible scholarship funds. —Laura Moran, Refugee Project Director Contest News Flash Contest #35: Write a story about you, but in a parallel universe where you had a different life. Don’t forget to submit to this month’s Flash Contest, provided by contributor Molly Torinus, before tomorrow at midnight! To submit to this contest, please visit our Submittable page. Selfie Contest Since Stone Soup’s last selfie contest in 2017, the selfie has taken on a new form: the masked selfie. That’s why we’re enlisting you to participate in our 2021 Selfie Contest: With and Without Masks. As has always been the case, we want these selfies to tell us a story. Think about how masks can both aid and make more difficult the expression of thoughts and feelings. How can you show us who you are behind the mask, and how can you build off of that image once the mask disappears, or vice versa? Get creative! Try something you’ve never thought to try before! Surprise us, and—most importantly—surprise yourself! You may submit up to four selfies: two with a mask and two without. Deadline: October 3, 2021 To submit to this contest, please visit our Submittable page. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Young Blogger Sofie Dardzinski wrote two beautiful and inspirational poems: one, “The Common Worker,” in celebration of Labor Day, and the other, “Coming Together,” about addressing climate change. Anandi, 11, wrote a scintillating essay in argument against Idaho’s transgender sports ban, “Brain, Not Body.” From Stone Soup September 2021
Saturday Newsletter: September 4, 2021
Woodpecker (watercolor)By Aspen Clayton, 11 (Lisle, IL), published in the September 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William Hello to all of you during these crazy, crazy times! We hope that all of you are safe from the natural disasters that are affecting so many of us. And, of course, that you are doing what needs to be done to stay safe from the pandemic. I have added a newsletter innovation today—a video! I hope you like it. I think that this is a mode of communication that works for me. Today’s video is about the publication of The Other Realm by Tristan Hui, the winner of this year’s Stone Soup Book Contest. Congratulations to Tristan for a job super well done! I’d also like to mention today—but there will be more in another newsletter—about our editor’s choice winner, who is Anya Geist. I am a working writer. I’d like to say to those of you who didn’t win that, unfortunately, not winning contests and having works rejected is part of the life of the writer. We look forward to reading what you come up with for next year, and you are also free to keep working on the novel you submitted this year. Refugee Project Fundraiser We have just sent out our first solicitation for our Refugee Project fundraiser. I don’t want to focus on that today, as for today Tristan’s book is the most important thing. So, more on this project next week. I will not explain that, in fact, in the words of the song from Cabaret, “money makes the world go round.” Classes As you all know, enrollment is open—we have two writing classes, the monthly book club, and now a filmmaking class starting next Saturday, September 11. There is flexibility in shifting between my writing class and Conner Bassett’s. The new filmmaking class does require that you know how to do basic video editing. However, if you don’t know how to edit, but this is something you really, really want to do, then please get in touch and we will discuss options. You will be able to enroll in classes after they start, but, obviously, starting at the beginning is ideal. Weekend Project Please read Summer Loh’s elegant poem about the woodpecker. And also, look at the paired illustration by Aspen Clayton. I was surprised a few months ago by a woodpecker just outside my kitchen window pecking away at the bark of a quince tree. Like Summer, I wondered what it was going for. And, like Summer, I found the sound comforting. I always enjoy the sound of woodpeckers. There is a trail I go on that starts at the Pacific Ocean and goes into the Santa Cruz Mountains. For an early stretch of the trail, before it gets into the redwoods, it goes through some old farmland. There are several huge old walnut trees along this part of the trail. I always stop to look at them—so many woodpecker holes! For this weekend’s project, I want you to observe something from nature. If you are where there has been extreme weather or fires, then use as a subject something from these momentous days. Otherwise, watch a bird, watch a cloud, watch your cat stalking a butterfly, watch the shadow being cast by a mountain as the sun sinks behind it. It doesn’t matter. Look for the center of your feelings, look for the center of how you are reacting to what you are watching. Note that Summer both gives you a sense of the bird with its “peck, peck, peck,” but also reaches into her imagination to describe what she is seeing in an original way—I am thinking there of the idea of the bird gliding like a paper airplane. As school has started and you may be busy this weekend still adjusting to being back in school—and for some of you, as it was for my daughter, back in school for the first time in a year and a half—I suggest that if time and focus is an issue, interpret what you see and feel either with art or with words. Prose or poetry are both OK. As always, if you are happy with what you make and think that our editor, Emma Wood, might like it for Stone Soup, then please submit it to us! Until next time, Refugee Project Dear friends and supporters of Stone Soup, Since the launch of the Refugee Project, we have partnered with seven organizations providing on-the-ground support to children living in refugee camps, as well as those resettled in host countries. Through these partnerships, we have collected over 300 pieces of artwork and writing by refugee youth. These creative works are currently on display in our newly created web portal for the project, which you can explore here. As we have said many times before, the media so often portrays refugee youth as the subject of a narrative. The Stone Soup Refugee Project provides a platform for these young people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. To make this vision a reality, we need your help. We have set ourselves a target goal of $10,000 to pilot the program. These funds will go toward the development of workshops delivered to young people in refugee camps, the facilitation of creative exchanges between young people, and the work of collecting and publishing more material on the Refugee Project website. In addition, funds will be used to support our Refugee Project contributing organizations and the young people they serve in the ways in which they deem valuable, such as the purchase of supplies and possible scholarship funds. —Laura Moran, Refugee Project Director Selfie Contest Since Stone Soup’s last selfie contest in 2017, the selfie has taken on a new form: the masked selfie. That’s why we’re enlisting you to participate in our 2021 Selfie Contest: With and Without Masks. As has always been the case, we want these selfies to tell us a story. Think about how masks can both aid and make more difficult the expression of thoughts and feelings. How can you
