An update from our forty-third Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 5, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, William took one of his earliest writing workshop topics—alliteration—and reworked it, adding more for the writers of the group to think about. In addition to alliteration, William also reviewed the technique of assonance, which occurs when the sounds in the middle of words repeat themselves. The class went over examples of alliteration and assonance, including from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The Challenge: Either find a piece of prose that you’ve already written, and add alliteration OR start something fresh using the techniques of alliteration. The Participants: Sage, Reese, Chelsea, Lena A, Delight, Madeline, Helen, Margaret, Hanbei, Peri, Julia, Pranjoli, Nami, Angela, Jonathan, Audrey, Gia, Jaya, Peter, Sierra, Arishka, Grace, Tilly, Mahika, Mia, Iago, Charlotte, Rachael, Lina. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Soul in the Clouds Nami Gajcowski, 11 I clutched a soft avocado in my hand and squished it slightly. It had just the right firmness and it would be fantastic in guacamole. I heard a sharp yelp, so I spun around to see a toddler with a desperate scream. I covered my ears before dropping the avocado into my shopping cart. Then, I pushed my items away from the toddler and found myself in the kids’ section. I was in the midst of stuffed zebras and gazelles with the faint buzzing sound of the child’s scream, somewhere near the produce section. I grabbed a plush zebra before dropping it into my shopping cart. I had no use for a zebra, but it would be my only memory of before. It would be the thing that held me onto terrifying, but true, reality. Tens of thousands of people went through this. But they had forgotten. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe it was tucked away deep inside their soul, no matter how much they tried to forget about it. No one had mentioned the seemingly perfectly nice people who brought everyone down with a betrayal. No one mentioned how many people were lost in the terrible escape. No one remembered that I was ten and was still clutching a stuffed zebra as the world fell at my feet and then turned into chaos. Or maybe it was forgiven and forgotten. But how could we forgive them? How could life go on as normal, with stores still selling pungent yet petrifying fruit that might’ve contained poison after the betrayal? How could they dare to do that? There was danger in this society. Hints of a downfall appeared here and there. Shocking incidents had confirmed that. But there were no rumors. No nothing. Any hint of what happened after the betrayal that happened now was not noticed or forgotten. Everything around me began swimming in my tear-filled eyes. I was no longer in the clutch of reality. I was floating… floating somewhere far and safe. Floating. Floating out of this world where people forgot about the horrors and tried – but would fail – to rebuild a new society and confirm that everything was okay. But nothing would be okay. Nothing. I could no longer see the grocery store. I was spinning in bright colors, clutching the zebra. Clutching the only thing that had tried and failed to bring me down to the ground. Even though I hated pretending everything was normal even though it wasn’t, I couldn’t go up into the air. I had to stay on the ground. Frantically groping around for something to hold on to was impossible. There was nothing to hold on to. My emotions began to conflict. Calm, terrified. Calm, terrified. Like the never-ending tidal wave that the moon brought. Like the days before the betrayal… like the calmness. But how could I give in to the sensation? I had to. It was the only way to survive. Visions of my life swirled around me. Of before. Of before the terrors. The zebra stuffy that I had– named Ellie – that I used to snuggle with every night. Of my old best friend. Of everything that had happened before. No. I needed to grab on to reality. I pondered shutting my eyes, hoping to block out the visions, but that would only take me farther away from the ground. I needed an anchor. I had no anchor. I had no someone who could be my anchor. I was floating. Floating. I would disappear soon. Off of the face of the earth. Up into the hands of the sky. No. No. No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t become a wisp of smoke – helpless against the world. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. But I was. I was no longer a person. I was a ghost. With trailing wisps of smoke. I was nothing. I was gone. My soul floated through the clouds. I tried to reach out for it, but it drifted out into the sun. I wasn’t dead. But I wasn’t living. I am an immortal body with no soul – an immortal body in the clouds. My soul continued to drift into the clouds. Soon it was gone. It had entered the sun. It was gone. Forever. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Sacrifice of the Sea Lina Kim, 11 Swimming seals sing songs of sacrifice, sending a seahorse to the seafloor. Tiny turtles turn and circle the swimming seahorse. Corals coo the carols of calmness, letting the little seahorse softly fall asleep. The shark swims by, stealing shells from the seafloor, and swims past the sleeping seahorse. The shark sweeps up the seahorse, swooping away to snack on the sleeping seahorse. The creatures are safe for another day. Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11, Newark, OH The Ocean Oasis Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11 The water teemed with wild things. The turtle’s whimsical thoughts were in tune with the sparkling, smiling sun and the beautiful blue-green bliss enveloping his shell. Eventually, he swam to the surface and paused his pondering, letting himself simply enjoy the
William Rubel
Writing Workshop #42: Ekphrasis
An update from William’s forty-second Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 22, plus some of the output published below William started off the Writing Workshop by explaining the concept of Ekphrasis, which typically refers to translating one piece of art from one format to another. As an example, William highlighted the poem “The Ambassador” by Emma Hoff, which was published in the January 2021 issue of Stone Soup. Emma’s inspiration for the poem was a painting by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (picture to the right). Additionally, William discussed Homer’s description of Achilles’s shield, Lucian of Syria’s description of a painting lost in ancient times, and later Boticelli’s painting that interpreted Lucian of Syria’s description. The Challenge: Write a piece that utilizes the technique of ekphrasis by reimagining a visual work of art into words. The Participants: Sierra, Mahika, Charlotte, Madeline, Julia, Lina, Reese, Nova, Mia, Hanbei, Iago, Reese, Peri, Gia, Jonathan, Nami, Sage, Lena A, Wesley, Rachael, Angela, Audrey, Grace, Delight, Jaya, Lena, Helen, Chelsea, Leo, Margaret. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Face of Time Nami Gajcowski, 11 I talked, but I could hear my words filing into her ear and out of another like a string of music notes. She held her violin at playing position, but when I asked her to play something, she just looked at the brown mahogany that the instrument was made out of and didn’t say anything. I took out my violin and played a drawn-out and mournful tune. She didn’t notice, or she didn’t care. I wasn’t sure which. I was impatient. I couldn’t teach music to a student who would only stand motionless. So, I sent her away a half-hour early.She didn’t move, but she said the first thing I heard her say during this violin lesson: “I will leave when I want to.” She wasn’t being defiant. Or maybe she was, but she used her words and twisted them into an innocent tone. So, I let her stay. I let her stay and stare at her violin. I made stabs of conversation. She never responded. I tried playing a lively tune. She continued to look like stone. Out of the blue, she stood up. Still holding her violin, she went to the coat hanger and grabbed her brown cloak off the golden hook. She set down her violin to fasten her cape. “Are you going?” I asked. She finished fastening her cape and grabbed her violin. It was eerie the silence that she made. Her footsteps didn’t make a sound. Her cape didn’t rustle. She opened the red doors, and quietly stepped outside my house. I stared at her. Something was intriguing. I knew that there was more to uncover to her. I felt that her silence held a secret. Maybe deep loss or unbearable pain. However, when her mother had dropped her off at my house for her first violin practice, she had maintained a stiff smile. That was probably for her talkative and over-eager mother. But when her mother left, her lopsided smile diapered, and she took a seat in front of my desk. She swiveled the chair to face my direction, and she picked up her violin as if she were about to play. She never did, though, and then that’s when I began to speak even though I wasn’t sure if she was listening. I stared outside my window. She walked down the street that was wet from rain, her violin in hand. I didn’t know where she was going, but there was something peculiar about her footsteps. Unlike when she was in the house, her footsteps made an ominous and echoing sound. I could hear her footsteps from across the street. The rain wet the ringlets of her brown hair. Though it wasn’t the brown I saw in my house. It looked a different color. Though if it were a color, what color was it? It seemed to change with the wind. It was unpredictable. It was changing. She looked like the corpse of time. Or maybe she was time itself. Her figure suddenly changed from a 12-year-old girl to an adult with a broad stance. She seemed to be ageing by the minute. Then, she disappeared. Had she died? No, now she was a baby. An innocent and gentle baby. There was nothing more to her, but she kept on crawling down the street as she began ageing again. However, there was something odd with the street. I had walked down it many times before, but something was different. It stretched out and into the rain. It was never-ending. The cheery buildings turned a drab grey. I could still see the girl. She was walking, but instead of going farther down the street, she seemed not to be moving forward. Suddenly, she turned back into the girl in my house. When I was teaching her the violin. She was the 12-year-old girl with brown hair that matched the color of her cape. I touched the window. Its smooth glass was now somewhat bumpy. Smoke billowed out of the girl’s cloak. The street turned to normal. The window became smooth. The girl disappeared. I never saw her again, but little did I know, she would change my life. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Horses in the Snow Lina Kim, 11 The two majestic horses plunged through the snow, tossing snowflakes off of the ground. The mare on the left had fur the color of a chestnut and a mane and tail the shade of peanut butter. A light sprinkle of snow coated her back. Beside her, on her right, was a stallion, black as night. Both had a small streak of white starting on their foreheads between their eyes, reaching down until it touched their muzzles. Snow-covered trees reached up to touch the light orange-pink sky. One tree’s thin trunk had bent over. The red-orange leaves coated in white reached to the ground desperately, but the trunk refused to give in,
Writing Workshop #41: “Critters” and Multiple Perspectives
“Critters”Hand-Colored Zoological Photomicrographs by Ernst Heeger, courtesy of Hans Kraus Gallery An update from our forty-first Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 15, plus some of the output published below We started this week’s workshop with a visit to New York! Photography expert Hans Kraus showed us around his Park Avenue gallery, sharing a selection of the beautiful nineteenth-century photographic drawings composed from insect parts, microscope magnifications, and even prints made from living material in the gallery’s current exhibition, called “Critters.” One of the key images from this show was William’s jumping off point for this class. We looked at the photograph – composed of wing scales from a Hawk Moth – considering how the similar but slightly different shaped and coloured objects in the image relate to each other, or not; how groups and sub-groups might form and interact depending on how we look at or think about it. We moved through examples of writing from a previous class by Georgia Marshall, as well as Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen, and listed to a quartet from Fidelio, all of which presented multiple characters in different, sometimes parallel, interactions with one another in different group formations. The Challenge: Write a piece from the perspective of 3-5 characters. They might appear in a single group, multiple groups or alone; they could be interacting, avoiding interaction, moving away from one another. The Participants: Peri, Lena DN, Maddie, Gia, Madeline K, Pranjoli, Reese, Margaret, Wesley, Julia, Rachael, Chelsea, Jaya, Lena A, Mia, Delight, Lina, Helen, Hanbei, Peter, Sage, Sierra, Mahika, Anna K, Audrey, Angela, Jonathan, Grace, Charlotte, Iago, Nova, Madeline, Nami. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Alone in the Wind Lina Kim, 11 As I walked home from school, I glanced at the kids outside, playing basketball and soccer and baseball somehow all combined into one game. They called it ‘basketbasesoccball’. For a second one girl saw me watching and I quickly shifted my gaze away, looking down at the sidewalk covered in chalk drawings. I pretended to be interested in them, trying to push the girl’s attention away from me, but instead she walked up to me. “Hey, do you wanna join us?” she asked. I stood there, paralyzed. I’d always tried to hide in the shadows—but here, there was no shade, not a single tree. The only shelter from the beating sun was on the bench with the covering—which was inside of the basketbasesoccball court. With people sitting on it. I shuddered at the very thought. Sweat trickled down my forehead, but not from the heat. “Robin?” she asked. I flinched at my name. “No thanks,” I managed quietly. She stared at me for a minute, then shrugged, getting back to the game. I watched as they laughed and played, shooting hoops and kicking balls into the net and making home runs. I’d always been invisible. I looked around at the barren earth around the school. There wasn’t a single plant—not a shrub, not a blade of grass, not even a weed. I’d always wanted to do something about the lack of nature. Instead of staying any longer and risking someone talking to me, I headed straight towards my house. It wasn’t exactly home. Nothing felt like home to me. It was just a house. My house. No, my mom and dad’s house. They cared about me, but they just didn’t go about it the right way. They tried to get me to be out in the world, out in the sunlight, when I’d rather be sitting in the shadows of a large redwood tree in the middle of the forest, drinking in pure nature. I reached a small forest. It wasn’t exactly a forest, just a place full of grass and trees, and it was really small. Still, I made a split second choice. I looked both ways and ran into the wilderness. I decided to climb a tree. I hadn’t done that in years, ever since I fell from one at four years old and broke my right arm. But that was seven years ago. I put my foot in a small dent in the bark and pulled myself up into the middle, where the trunk split into several branches. It was a nice hidden place. Suddenly a large gust of wind swooped around me, somehow grabbing me and throwing me into the air. A tornado? A hurricane? I reached wildly, trying to grab a branch to hold onto, but I was too far. The wind swept me into the sky. I felt myself dissolving into the wind, becoming part of it. I scrambled desperately in the air, but soon I was only wind. No one would remember me. I was invisible. And I still am. Forever. Sometimes I still wish I could go back, make friends. But I know I will always be part of the wind. Immortal. But sometimes I didn’t want to be. What was the point of never dying when there was never anyone to keep you company? Even if I could be seen, if I was still immortal, they would just move on and I would be left, friendless once more. Alone in the wind. Anna Ko, 11Saint Louis, MO The Midnight of our Friendship Anna Ko, 11 They were happy and content. They had all they needed. Three friends together. But their bond wasn’t that simple. Their bond had its ups and downs, like the tide. Sometimes, they would click. They would understand and know just what to do. But sometimes, they were annoying as the squirrels and rabbits which continued to terrorize their garden, always huddling around to see how they could help the other. But never, never, had they ever had such a situation. When they were young, they had first met. But as they grew up their interests started to differ, and they argued more. They had their moments, but slowly, over time, it just started to collapse like a half-demolished unkempt structure. No one noticed
