Current Interns
Michaela Ye-Hyang Frey (2023)
Michaela Ye-Hyang Frey is a fifteen-year-old who attends Langley High School. She is a debater, poet, painter, web designer, and admirer of long, winding blocks of prose. She has been a violinist since 2011, and talks about it in her writing quite often. She received a scholarship from JSA Women’s Leadership Institute, canvassed for political campaigns, and won a Scholastic Writing Award. She is passionate about emphasizing non-Eurocentric art history, and founded the Gliese Art Collective, a local nonprofit that gathers and compiles resources to preserve valuable history. Mostly, she writes about matters concerning the intersections of cybernetics, artistry, outer space, and identity.
Sage Millen (2020–)
Sage is fifteen years old and lives in Vancouver, Canada. She enjoys photography, (including dance, animal, and portrait photography), reading, and writing. She also loves playing ultimate and spending time with her dog, Kiwi.
As a Stone Soup intern, Sage is involved in various projects, such as writing creativity prompts, judging flash contests, and researching past Stone Soup contributors, among other things. She recently held a silent auction to raise money for Stone Soup as part of its 50th Anniversary Drive.
Aditi Nair (2023)
Aditi Nair is a rising sophomore at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School. She lives in Midlothian, Virginia, with her parents and younger brother. Aditi is an award-winning children’s book author and writer. In addition to her writing pursuits, Aditi actively participates in various publications and organizations. She has published pieces in Stone Soup, Skipping Stones, Story Monsters Ink, and her community magazine. Aditi loves traveling and often finds inspiration from nature and current events for her writing. In recognition of her efforts in promoting environmental awareness and conservation, Aditi received the Skipping Stones Youth Honor Award in 2021. When she isn’t engrossed in books or creative writing, she enjoys playing music on the violin, making hand-lettered greeting cards, and baking. Furthermore, Aditi is a STEAM enthusiast. In her passion for promoting inclusivity, she founded I’mPossible, a non-profit dedicated to fostering inclusiveness in STEAM education for children with learning challenges.
As a Stone Soup Intern, Aditi focuses on formatting and editing pieces to prepare them for publication in the magazine under the guidance of the production coordinator, Carmela Furio.
Eori Tokunaga (2023)
Eori is a current graduate student in the San Jose State University MLIS program. She graduated with a B.S. in Human Development with dual minors in Japanese & Psychology from UC Davis in 2018. Using her previous experiences working in Animation/Visual Development, Psychology, Public Health, and Social Work, Eori intends to pursue a career in Digital Marketing.
Eori currently lives in Los Angeles, working as a library assistant for a public library and as a graduate student assistant while attending school full-time. When she’s free, she likes to play with her dog Hana, create watercolor illustrations, and write picture book manuscripts in the hopes of becoming an established Author/Illustrator for children’s books one day.
As a marketing intern, Eori will assist with increasing engagement on Stone Soup’s social media platforms and help codify and streamline Stone Soup’s promotional messaging.
Former Interns
Anya Geist (2020–21)
Anya Geist is a ninth grader who lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, with her parents and dog, Freya. She has liked writing from a very early age—particularly vignettes—and has been published in Stone Soup several times, for both writing and photography. Additionally, she enjoys swimming, tennis, and Model UN, and, this past fall, she started a literary journal at her high school.
As a Stone Soup intern, Anya ran a series of interviews with Stone Soup contributors, co-facilitated the Book Club alongside Laura Moran, and helped publish writing workshop pieces on the website each week!
Gina Gruss (2020–21)
Gina Marie Gruss (she/her) is a senior at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of FAU, double majoring in Creative Writing and Visual Art. She is a born-and-raised south Floridian. She is an award-winning writer, artist, and photographer, and her works have been featured by Amazon Prime Video, Mensa America, Wattpad, and FAU. She recently received a grant in creating a piece that fuses art and technology, called “Hotspot.” Her eclectic works often touch on underrepresented and liminal narratives. When not making her next creative work, she loves planning events, swimming, cooking, baking, and spending time with her two cats, Athena and Apollo.
As a Stone Soup intern, Gina worked on multiple projects to boost engagement across the website and various social media platforms in order to further solidify Stone Soup’s visual identity and branding.
Ryan Hudgins (2020–21)
Ryan Hudgins is a rising junior at the University of Richmond, double majoring in Journalism and Leadership Studies. She currently resides in her hometown of Chicago, a few blocks away from the mailbox where she submitted her first Stone Soup story, which appeared on the “Honor Roll” of the September/October 2016 issue.
As the editorial intern for Stone Soup’s Editor-in-Chief Emma Wood, Ryan conducted a first read of fiction and personal narrative submissions and assisted with the production of the monthly issues.
Claire Jiang (2020–21)
Claire Jiang is currently a freshman at the Lawrenceville High School. She lives in New Jersey with her family of three (yes, plus the dog). She is an avid reader and writer, submitting multiple works to Stone Soup in the past. Her other passions include music, singing, and being a classical pianist. Stone Soup and its artists have always been a source of inspiration for her and she was very excited to further contribute to the magazine as an intern.
Sim Ling Thee (2020–21)
Sim Ling Thee (she/her) is a young Southeast Asian writer. She has placed in numerous writing competitions, including being the youngest finalist for New Zealand’s NFFD Youth Competition 2020, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Stone Soup, Shameless Magazine, and Skipping Stones. She is also a staff writer for Gen Z Writes, Plastic-Lite SG, and The Augment Review, among others. Outside of writing, she’s a cybersecurity enthusiast and a proud INTJ!
You can read more about Sim Ling on her blog.
Sabrina Guo (2019)
Sabrina Guo is a fifteen-year-old from New York. She is an award-winning student journalist, poet, novelist, violinist, entrepreneur, and a young humanitarian. She is the recipient of the Civic Expression Award and five Gold Medals from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Awards, the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards, and Poetry Society of Virginia’s Jenkins Prize. She is also the founder of Long Island Laboring Against COVID-19 (LILAC) and Girl Pride International. She loves being in nature, going to the beach, riding her black bike with pink streaks, listening to music, and playing with her tabby cat Daisy 24/7.
As a Stone Soup intern, Sabrina interviewed all of the company’s senior management (CEO, EIC, etc.) and developed an in-house operation manual. She also worked with the leadership team to develop an ongoing program that features works by young refugee artists, including film, photography, art, and writing.
Sam Rozal (2018–19)
Sam Rozal is currently an undergraduate student (but soon-to-be a masters student) who got involved with Stone Soup after taking a course about literary journals with Emma Wood at UC-Santa Cruz! During her time interning at Stone Soup, she was blown away by the level of talent within the community. Sam loves writing, especially science writing, and she is currently working on a research project about beach litter.
As a Stone Soup intern, Sam worked on social media and outreach as well as reading through submissions for the book contest in 2019.
