An update from our fifty-seventh Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, February 5th, plus some of the output published below Summary & mini-challenges: This week’s Writing Workshop was a little different from usual. After the regularly scheduled writing journal reading, William launched into a new structure for writing workshop. Starting us off, William played a Beethoven composition that he challenged the group to think of as a dialogue between two characters. After discussing what the group thought about the music, William challenged the group to write a short piece inspired by the music they had just heard. Next, William played part of Mahler’s first symphony and challenged the writers to think of nature and the shimmery, ethereal aspect of the piece. We heard from several of the writers, who were inspired to write about subjects as disparate as space ships, morning mist, and birds beckoning someone to get out of their bed. The next piece of music William played was Liszt’s 1st piano concerto, beautifully played by Yuja Wang. William then pulled the sheet music for what Yuja was playing, and invited the writers to take a look at the patterns on the screen, whether or not they could read music. Particularly, William invited the writers to think about what was happening on the left and right hands, and how they could incorporate something similar into their writing. What followed after the piece of music was an interesting discussion of what sort of stories the music made the workshop participants think of. Then the writers were given another time period in which to explore these ideas on the page. The participants: Agatha, Lena, Yueling, Alexandra, Peri, Lauren, Kelby, Anya, Ananya, Elbert, Iago, Kate, Saanvi Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Flash Fiction Pieces Peri Gordon, 12 Beethoven: An army, approaching slowly and with menace. A single person, with a quiet soul and a desire for a tranquil life. The army’s boots thud over miles and miles of empty wasteland. They are a black spot in the distance, yet their shadow looms large over she who is persecuted. Cold and careless, they trudge on, prepared to do their job accurately. Their victim’s pure, golden heart is weighed down with dread, sadness, and solitude. She does not want a fight. But she must fight back, for herself and her home. She loses. Mahler: The tree’s smooth, shiny bark is cool to the touch. It climbs into the sky. At the base of a tree is a young man who has nothing but himself. A pine cone rolls to his feet. A squirrel darts past. The man is at peace with nature. Perhaps he is even content with it. But then, in his mind, he hears the call of a life in the kingdom. The royal trumpets, the golden gates. Instead of trees, spires and turrets. Instead of wet earth, smooth roads. Home. Welcoming. Society. In his mind, he makes amends. He is beckoned forward and embraced. He runs home, loved and cared for. But it is just a dream. That life is over, long gone. The man opens his eyes. He is in a brand new wonderland. Green leaves climb into the sky. Clouds drift by. All of nature is in harmony. He can live with that. It is grand; it is wonderful; he is alone, but not alone. Liszt: Ariel leapt from challenge to challenge, contest to contest, place to place, stretching out the grasping hand that was her soul and reaching for the stars. Never content, never ready to settle down, she floated from North America to Africa to Australia, chasing her dreams, which were always growing and changing. Her brother, Clarence, knew what he wanted: a calm life with a happy family and a steady income. “Be happy, be content, and stay in place,” he told Ariel, so afraid she would leave him behind. Perhaps she already had. As his life went on in a linear fashion, she leapt and danced and proved her worth, grasping, reaching, and climbing, with a singing, shining self.
William Rubel
Writing Workshop #56: Vignettes
An update from our fifty-sixth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, January 22nd, plus some of the output published below William introduced the workshop participants to the concept of vignettes—a short, descriptive piece of writing that typically describes a character or a scene. Beginning with the concept of vignette photographs, William then went on to give the class examples of poetic vignettes. The class went over poems by Basho, a description from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and a passage by Willa Cather from her novel My Antonia. The Challenge: Write a focused description of a place, person, or scene. The Participants: Ananya, Lena, Liam, Lauren, Yueling, Kate, Alexandra, Peri, Agatha, Anya, Elbert, Rachael, Iago, Shonali, Hani To watch the students’ readings from the class, click here. Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA The Nighttime City Peri Gordon, 12 The streets are nocturnal. The nighttime city stretches on through space and time. The skyscrapers don’t scrape the sky, they illuminate it with dancing lights that only come out when all else is dark. The streams of vehicles flow under the swirling haze of the atmosphere, both unending. The buildings are drenched in colorful blackness, as the car engines sing a lullaby and the world is locked into a dream. Window pane after window pane is encased in frost, street after street is decked with cars. Time is frozen like the windows, time is never-ending like the line of cars, time is completely irrelevant. A second goes by in an hour, an hour goes by in a second as slumber sweeps the clocks into a dreamlike state and time goes wild by doing nothing at all. It’s been midnight for hours.
Saturday Newsletter: January 29, 2022
“Mirrored” (iPhone 11 Pro) by Sabrina Lu, 12 (Ashburn, VA), published in the January 2022 issue of Stone Soup A note from William Dear Stone Soup Friends, It is a gorgeous end of January where I live in California. I went on a bike ride today along a path with the Pacific Ocean on one side of the path, and wildflowers blooming along the other side. Acacia trees are in bloom, clusters of bright yellow flowers filling the air with sweet perfume. I don’t know how those of who live where it snows do it! Stone Soup site licenses! Thanks to all of you generous donors, all of us at Stone Soup—with the help of Naomi at the Society of Young Inklings—are busy working on curriculum to help teachers use Stone Soup in their classroom, and on improving our website so that it is easier to navigate and, we hope, looks better. Shortly, we are going to be sending out thousands of emails to find teachers willing to sign up for a FREE school-wide license as beta testers. When we started Stone Soup almost 50 years ago there was no Internet! So, right now we are really rethinking Stone Soup magazine, the website, and the Stone Soup creative writing project for the modern classroom. After beta testers have given us feedback so we can fine tune the project, we will then start offering the site licenses for sale. Getting Stone Soup into the classroom is crucial for the long-term success of the magazine. We’ve made it 50 years; we need schools to adopt our online platform to make it another 50 years. We need your help to succeed. Here is what you can do. Please talk to teachers you know who teach creative writing in the classroom. This is through eighth grade. If the teacher doesn’t know about Stone Soup, then please show them the website and share your enthusiasm. If the teacher might be interested in a site license, then please, with their permission, send us the teacher’s name, grade, and email address. You can write to us at education@stonesoup.com. We will then write your teacher friend to confirm their interest, and then start getting them set up so every classroom in the school can access the website without logging in, and every student and teacher can log into the website from home using the school email address. Our goal in 2022 is to begin growing again! Thank you for your help. If you have marketing suggestions, and/or are good at marketing and think you might be able to help us, then please write to us at education@stonesoup.com. Now, business aside, just look at that photograph by Sabrina Lu. What can I say but, “wow!”? I know it’s not a very articulate thing to say about the work of art, but that is the first word that came to my mind when I looked at Sabrina Lu’s photograph, Mirrored. Brilliant is too weak a word to describe this masterful photograph. Imaginary forest. Real forest. Real sky. Reflected sky. Reflected sky as water so the snow ball becomes an island in the middle of a lake reflected by still waters. And there is so much more! Stare at the ball, and dream! Based on Sabrina’s photograph, the weekend project is simple: take a photograph, or write a scene that describes Mirrored. If you want to work in photography then I want you to work with reflections. Reflections in windows, in mirrors on polished table tops, polished cars, puddles, lakes, streams, maybe even a sink. Reflections are about repeated images, sometimes clear, sometimes distorted. If you can add something into the reflection, as Sabrina did, then so much the better. If you want to write about this scene you will be writing what is called a vignette. There is no story. No plot. You can describe this with the voice of an omniscient narrator—meaning a voice that knows all and sees all—or you can write your story so that we see this scene through the eyes of a character. Read the poem, below, “One Day a Blizzard Came,” by Rainer Paska for one approach to writing about this piece. In Rainer’s poem, the character, the protagonist may live inside the globe! Until next week, Rainer Pasca, 14 (Bay Shore, NY) From Stone Soup January 2022 One Day a Blizzard Came By Rainer Pasca, 14 (Bay Shore, NY) I live in a snow globe. A little lamp shines in on me. I talk to the lamp, maybe it’s lonely. A door opens. My brain is full of water, but I am not alone. Johnni, Adrian and Oliver are here. Johnni says, Look out, everyone! It’s a blizzard. Oliver counts five pieces of snow on his nose and Adrian jumps like glitter. Everyone stares for a second. Then, their lungs remember to breathe Continue reading the January 2022 isue 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.
