creativity as refuge
— A poet escapes his chaotic household at night to write in the barn, where the sounds of sleeping animals inspire verses that flow from his heart.
— A girl hides in her favorite tree before a dreaded doctor's visit, finding solace in the branches and sharing a poem that no one else appreciated.
— A young writer struggles with creative block, trying every genre and filling candy wrappers with unfinished stories, until she discovers the solution is to write about her own experience.
— A city girl sent to her grandparents' desert homestead for summer discovers unexpected beauty in the harsh landscape and finds her artistic calling.
— A girl discovers her late grandfather's unfinished charcoal drawing of a court jester and secretly completes it in watercolor, connecting with him through art across time.
— A deaf girl named Shira, isolated from her musical family, discovers her artistic talent and creates a fundraising campaign for Haiti earthquake victims through her paintings.
— While packing to move, a teenager discovers a story she wrote at age nine that eerily predicts her current situation of leaving her childhood room.
— While packing to move, a teenager discovers stories she wrote at age nine, including one that eerily predicts her current situation of leaving her childhood room.
— A young musician describes the physical and emotional experience of playing a brass instrument, from cold valves to the music flowing through her body.
— A sister recounts the day Arachne challenged Athena to a weaving contest and was transformed into a spider, then encounters her again years later.