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After watching this TedTalk, create your own heart map in your writer's notebook. Here are some questions that can help you mine your heart: Who has made a difference in your life? What was the best day of your life? Worst? Who are your favorite teachers? Why?

Once you have filled the page with a map of your heart, think about what in your heart could make a wonderful short story. Remember that this is fiction! You are allowed to change names and events to make your story really interesting.

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Mapping Your Heart | Georgia Heard | TEDxTheBenjaminSchool

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Check out some of the best student writing in Scholastic's Best Teen Writing Anthologies. These anthologies are available online for free, but your teacher can sign up to receive a hard copy for his or her classroom as well. If these stories inspire you to compete in this prestigious contest, you can find information to do just that on the same website.

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The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers publishes selections from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in its annual publications The Best Teen Art and The Best Teen Writing, which are distributed free of charge to schools and libraries nationwide.

Check out some of our publications available below!

Yearbook

The Yearbook contains the National Medalists list, information about our many programs, including workshops and the National Student Poets Program, and the names of our partner organizations and supporters. It's useful as a look back at the previous program year to see the full scope of the Scholastic Awards. Download the Yearbook:

The Best Teen Art

The Best Teen Art was created to showcase more student artwork. It features works from Gold and Silver Medalists, along with sections focusing on the Gold Medal Portfolio recipients and direct scholarship recipients. All of the works in The Best Teen Art were selected from National Medalists in the Scholastic Awards. If you're interested in seeing what's on the minds of today's teens, then be sure to download your copy today.

The Best Teen Writing

The Best Teen Writing is an anthology of authentic teenage voices from across the country. These Scholastic Awards pieces express the thoughts and aspirations of our nation's youth. The Alliance prints and distributes 15,000 free copies of The Best Teen Writing each year to students, educators, families, libraries, and educational organizations throughout the United States. Download a PDF below.

National Student Poets Program Chapbook

The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers have partnered to create the National Student Poets Program (NSPP), the country's highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. Five outstanding high school poets whose work exhibits exceptional creativity, dedication to craft, and promise are selected annually for a year of service as national poetry ambassadors. This chapbook features the top works from these five poets.

In celebration of the National Student Poets Program's fifth year, a special 5th Anniversary edition of the chapbook was produced in 2016. This chapbook features updates on the student poets from Classes 2012-15, a collaborative poem between the first four Classes, biographies of all of the jurors from the past five years, and more.

Healing Through Creativity

Healing Through Creativity features works of art and writing by teens who have experienced the personal loss of a close loved one. The anthology includes discussion questions to help open and elevate the conversation on grief and bereavement. Download Healing Through Creativity:

Guide to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

The Guide to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards provides easy-to-follow information about the different ways that students, parents, educators, and supporters interact with the Scholastic Awards, and how they can become involved in our program. Download the Guide:

National Catalog

The National Catalog of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards showcased the accomplishments of creative teens who have dedicated themselves to their craft and received national recognition for their efforts. The Alliance printed and distributed 15,000 free copies of its National Catalog each year to students, educators, school administrators, government officials, and educational and creative organizations. Download the National Catalog:

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Comic Art

View a selection of comic art pieces from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards featuring a foreword by comic art legend Stan Lee.

The Great Encouragement

2013 marked the 90th anniversary of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, which have encouraged millions of teens to pursue their passions by providing recognition, publication, and scholarships opportunities. This special publication follows the unique history of the Awards from its beginning in 1923, through the creation of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and to the present day. Click here for a preview of the book and get your own copy today!

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The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers publishes selections from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in its annual publications The Best Teen Art and The Best Teen Writing , which are distributed free of charge to schools and libraries nationwide. Check out some of our publications available below!

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Since each of your scenes should contain some dialogue, it is important to know the rules for punctuating dialogue correctly.The following video provides an excellent visual tutorial of how to punctuate dialogue. Here are some basic rules to get you started:

1. Quotation marks go around what the character says.

2. Each time a new speaker is introduced, a new paragraph of dialogue should begin. Even if that means one paragraph is only one word long.

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Have you ever read a story that was so vividly written, you almost felt as if you were transported to its setting? If so, you have experienced sensory writing as a reader. The attached document will help you learn what sensory language is and will help you find ways to add it into your story.

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A really smart way to organize your story is to think of it like a movie. A movie's story develops in scenes. Each scene's setting is generally just one place. There is usually a mini-conflict in every scene. Every scene has dialogue, action and character's thoughts. Attached is a graphic organizer that will help you plan your story AND revise your story in terms of scenes.

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After considering the organization of your story, begin writing your first draft. You should write freely, not worrying too much about language conventions. Your main goal during this writing session should be to get your story down.

Once you have written your story, go back into it. Look for where the action begins. That is where you want to begin your story. You might find that you will need to cut quite a bit of your writing. That's okay. You will be able to weave that background info into future scenes.

Remember what makes a story interesting to you- the action!

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Professional writers often find inspiration for their fictional stories from news' headlines. After scrolling through KidsPost (below), ask yourself if there is something there that intrigues you enough to explore it further in a fictional story.

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Games, news, contests, puzzles, and fun activities for kids.

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The New York Times Presents 10 Short Stories Inspired by Archived Photos 

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The New York Times Presents 10 Short Stories Inspired by Archived Photos 

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Check out these ten short stories written by Asian-American authors who were presented with archived photos. The stories that they came up with are completely fictional. a really neat feature of this series in the author's explanation of inspiration.

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A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

Past Tense

The New York Times invited Asian-American authors to choose photos from our archives and write short young-adult fiction inspired by them.

A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois. Credit...

As we digitize The New York Times's photography archives, we often come across images that resonate in unusual and unexpected ways, even after a century. We wondered what novelists might make of some of them - so we asked. To be specific, we asked 10 acclaimed authors to write pieces of short fiction inspired by vintage photos from The Times. What follows are the results, along with the images in question and the authors' explanations of how the particular photos spoke to them.

We were especially interested in themes of identity, belonging and empowerment, which now dominate the national conversation, so we reached out to authors working in the young-adult genre, which has been grappling with those issues for years. We focused on Asian-American novelists as part of our continuing commitment to underrepresented voices, as well as to see what commonalities and differences rose to the surface.

Each author was sent about a half-dozen images and asked to select just one. Some of the photos reflected their ancestry. Others spoke to important aspects of their life or work. After each writer picked the image that captivated her or him most, we asked that they disregard whoever the real people in the photographs were and even the true-life locations if they preferred. We wanted their imagination to be the only engine here. As you will see, the writers took the photos and ran. We are grateful to them for giving these images new lives.
Editor's Note: The individuals appearing in these photographs are unrelated to the characters and events described in the stories.

Inside the pig's head, it was starting to stink. The half-dozen mints Jenny Watanabe had eaten at the beginning of her shift to pre-emptively perfume the interior had long since worn off. She was already sweating like crazy, and the new Big Bad Wolf had just begun chasing them. She knew it was only going to get worse. Tokyo Disneyland on a hot day was a long slog through mobs of squealing children clutching melting ice cream cones while executing repetitive choreography in bulky costumes.

She didn't know it would be like this when she started the job. She had thought it would be a welcome break from the demoralizing struggle of learning Japanese, because at Tokyo Disneyland, everything was in English. She was Yonsei, which meant she looked Japanese but didn't know how to say much beyond sumimasen. When she first arrived at the park, one week into her exchange program, seeing all those English signs felt like coming home.

The honeymoon didn't last long.

"The first rule is that you do not talk," the character trainer informed her on her first day. Jenny was secretly relieved. She had been cast as Practical Pig, the one who builds his house out of stone. He was distinguished from his impractical brothers Fifer and Fiddler by his angry eyebrows.

She had not anticipated how quickly "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" would lodge in her head as the most irritating ear worm in the history of ear worms, or how Practical's eyebrows could terrify little kids. A few days into the job, after a kid literally ran away from her while shrieking, Fifer (a Japanese guy who spoke perfect English, making her feel extra ashamed of her rudimentary knowledge of her ancestral tongue) said, "Why do you think Practical is constantly being recast? You're the third Practical in two months. No one can cut it!"

And then there was the mind trip of spending so much time in Practical's head. It was kind of like being transported into an alternate dimension. All sound was muffled by the extensively padded pig cheeks, and her vision was restricted to only what she could see through Practical's tiny, immovable eye holes. Usually it was Fifer's outflung white-gloved hand as he did his Irish-dance-inspired jig.

If she concentrated enough on Fifer's hand and on her own choreography (it really was challenging to dance around in a rotund pig's belly), she could almost convince herself that she wasn't real at all. She was simply a cog in the machine that was Tokyo Disneyland. Inside the pig, she was anonymous; she was no one. Staying silent had never seemed so natural. She experienced her pigness as a void - a black hole that had been stripped of its sucking power and was now simply nothing.

*

That morning, when she arrived in the backstage changing area, a blond girl was sitting on the bench putting on the Big Bad Wolf's feet. "Hey, I'm Veronica," the blonde said. "I'm the new Wolf."

Veronica! Jenny had seen Veronica before. She'd been wearing a Swiss Miss-type outfit over by Cinderella's Castle. The good thing about being inside a pig's head was that people didn't know when she was checking them out. Outside the head, she was tongue-tied.

Veronica gave her an eyebrow tilt. "You O.K.?"

"Um, yeah." Jenny pulled out her mints and popped several into her mouth, then thought she should probably offer some to Veronica. She held out the tin. "The head gets stuffy," she explained.

Veronica nodded gravely and took a couple. "Thanks. You're American too, right?"

"Um, yeah." She started to get dressed in her costume.

"Did you ever think that being forced to stay quiet all the time is like an infringement on our First Amendment rights? Like, we already have to be nice all day and let little kids hit us. This is practically abuse. We should start a union."

Jenny didn't know what to say. She began to turn red from embarrassment at her own dorkiness, so she put on Practical's head.

Veronica gasped. "Check out your eyebrows! You look pissed!"

*

It was clear that Veronica was a different kind of Wolf. She was way more into it than the old Wolf, and there was a campy, exaggerated quality to the way she chased them. Jenny found it distracting. She couldn't access her void space the way she normally could, because she kept wanting to watch Veronica.

As the climax of their performance approached, Veronica accidentally-on-purpose tripped and fell, dramatically pounding her gloved hands on the ground in a silent tantrum. Jenny and the other Pigs arranged themselves in a rough triangle, doing their step-touch, step-touch thing. At the end of the song they were supposed to skip in a circle, jump-turn twice and wave jazz hands at the gathered audience. But then Jenny saw Veronica give up on her silent tantrum and - in complete defiance of the official choreography - prop her head up on one hand to watch the Pigs finish.

Jenny felt as if she could hear Veronica challenging her: Union! First Amendment! Pissed!

Fifer was beginning his jazz hands, but instead of joining him, Jenny had the irresistible urge to raise her fist in the air. The white glove squished as she clenched her fingers. The audience gaped at her silently. She was exhilarated; she could practically feel the sun on her face.
Why this photo: This photograph from Tokyo Disneyland stood out to me immediately because it was quirky and startling. It invites the viewer to ask questions: Why does that pig look angry? Who is inside the pig's costume? How do they feel? I had to know the answers. - M.L.
Malinda Lois the author of "Ash," which is now available in a special 10th-anniversary edition; "A Line in the Dark"; and other novels. She grew up in Colorado.
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Nani can't work the remote control.

"Sham tells me, 'It's easy, it's easy,' instead of paying the TV man to show us properly," she puffs, jamming her long red nails into buttons, producing nothing but static on the new 55-inch.

"Let me try it," I murmur, lost in Nani's iPhone.

"You don't know anything. Every time you come, you break my phone."

I'm too deep in Instagram to defend myself. Sundays at Nani's are a sacred ritual. The day she used to take me out. But I'm in seventh grade now. I don't need her to take me out. What I need is her phone.

"I tell your mother to get you your own phone but she says your grades will go down. I'd rather a grandson who can do useful things than get A's and sit here like a lump. Sham! Sham! "

I glance up at her, jostling the remote, the sequins on her jumpsuit a radiant flurry. She bought the jumpsuit at the Dadeland mall a few months ago, the last Sunday I let her take me out. She'd attempted to make me over with Ralph Lauren Polo vests, an Aveda facial and a D&G speedo, before I escaped to the arcade. ("I just want you to be happy with how you look. So you can make friends," she lamented later. "I have friends," I shot back. She glared through me and started walking, weighed down by bags. "If Grandpa asks, tell him all these clothes are for you.")

"Oh, look," she crows now.

Nani's managed to get something on the TV.

Ariana Grande is lip-syncing, half-naked and covered in paint.

"That's YouTube. We need Netflix," I say, unhelpfully, scrolling through Archer Bresden's photos, careful not to like any of them by accident. He just turned 13, literally six months younger than me, and has muscles bigger than my head. He dressed like Thor for Halloween. I hate him.

" Sham! " Nani calls again.

Grandpa ducks his shiny, round head in. He gets so little sun these days he looks like a goblin poking out of his gold mine. "What is this nonsense?" he hectors, pointing a knobby finger at Ariana. "Prakash says it's the Hulu station. Proper Hindi movies in HD. But he says do the free trial otherwise you have to pay."

"I don't want Hulu. I don't want a Hindi movie. I want Netflix. That's why I came," I growl, trying to figure out if Archer's eyes are actually that color or whether there's a filter. "I don't even know Hindi."

"We'll put subtitles," Grandpa dismisses. "Boy your age should know the classics. 'Dilwale' ... 'Lagaan' ... 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' ..."

"We're watching something else," says Nani calmly, unable to stop YouTube from rolling into a montage of boys tormenting cats. "Santosh wants to show me this movie. 'The Boys I Love.'"

Grandpa gapes at me.

"'To All the Boys I've Loved Before,'" I snap, but he still looks perturbed. "It's for school," I add.

Nani darts me a look.

"What kind of school is this?" Grandpa harrumphs. "We watch 'Sholay.' Then you bring in Nani's pakoras and do a proper report and teach your classmates about Amitabh Bachchan. Your teacher will give extra credit."

"That's not how it works," I say, frustrated. "This is America."

"Hulu!" Grandpa barks at Nani, pointing at YouTube gone wild: teddy bears being stuffed into blenders. "Go to Hulu!"

"Hulu Vulu! If you're so smart, you do it!" Nani retorts, holding out the remote. But Grandpa's already halfway down the hall, his limp stuttering on the marble. ("Prakash says it's easy!")

A DM pops up on Insta. From Jeannie, my lab partner: Why u hearting Archer Bresden's pics

I drop the phone. It hits the floor hard.

"No wonder your mother won't get you a phone," Nani says, dumping the remote on the couch. "Let's go to Cocowalk. See a movie properly. Like we used to do before you became a homebody."

"My friends hang out there." I scoop up the phone, too afraid to assess the damage.

"Must be good friends if you want to avoid them."

"Plus you can't concentrate on the movie," I say hotly, snatching the remote and searching for Netflix myself. "There's people and they eat popcorn and make noise and kiss in front of you. What's the point."

"That is the point, Santosh," Nani says, sharply. "That's the whole point."

I look up. Her new jumpsuit shimmers blue and green. She's wearing makeup. Her hair is blown and styled. She's wearing diamonds. It's Sunday, after all. But we don't go out anymore. I won't let her take me. And yet, she's still ready, like a bird that might be let out of its cage.

Why this photo: Longing. That was the emotion when I saw this photo for the first time: a reminder of what the movies meant to me as an anxious, alienated teenager, the only Indian in my neighborhood and school. I needed the experience of a crowded theater, of an audience, to feel connected. To feel human. What happens when that is lost? - S.C.
Soman Chainani is the author of the New York Times best-selling series "The School for Good and Evil," soon to be a major motion picture. He grew up in Key Biscayne, Fla.
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Sì, the word for four, sounded very similar to sǐ, the word for death. It was a deeply unlucky number.

So when she was born, her father, who had prayed every day to Guanyin for a son after three daughters, took one look at her and walked out of the birthing room. She was not only the fourth, but a girl at that.

She spent her entire life hiding in corners, staying out of everyone's way, trying to make up for the ill fortune she had brought down upon her father, by finding little ways to organize their lives around luckier numbers.

She whispered to the rice plants to sprout in unison on the eighth - eight, bā, which sounded similar to fā, the word for wealth and prosperity - day of spring. Her father beamed at the bright green shoots blanketing the flooded fields and credited his luck to the auspicious timing.

When the hail came and rattled the tin roof of their house, she whispered for the storm to turn away in three - sān, which was similar to shēng, the word for birth - hours, to divert calamities away from her family. Her father looked up in astonishment at the clearing skies and proclaimed that their stroke of luck had protected their crops.

And when the rains dried up and the rice fields cracked, she whispered to the skies to send water within nine days - nine, jiǔ, which sounded like jiǔ, the word for eternity and longevity. The skies opened and her father declared the family protected by the heavens.

She, of course, never told anyone that she was responsible for these events in their lives. Being the fourth and a girl was misfortune enough. Adding the label of witch, zhu, would surely ostracize their family from the rest of the village. She had seen other girls accused of witchcraft, witnessed them excluded and left unmarried. One girl had been driven out of the village altogether.

At night, she studied in secret by lantern light for the exams that could qualify her for a coveted government scholarship, one that sent students to study at American universities. It would give her a reason to leave home at last, to remove herself from this place altogether and thus from the misfortune that came with her.

But after she took the exams, the invitation that arrived in the mail came not from the government's scholar fund - but from a society in Chicago that specialized in training students gifted with the kind of magic she possessed.

How did they know? She spent that day studying her hands in wonder. The test had been as normal as she could have imagined. She did not realize that her fingers had left trails of magic on the paper, like an imprint of dust that glittered long after she had finished.

So the next morning, she woke up at six - liù, which sounded similar to liú, the word indicating clarity and smoothness - and quietly left home, turning her shoes away from the smattering of homes in her family's rural village to Shanghai, the city of the future, from which she would embark to America.

The entire trip on the boat, she practiced her talents, making broken light bulbs glow in the boat's dining area and scattering blankets of clouds to form patterns against the blue sky. It was a surprisingly smooth journey. Other students in her bunker - twins and a round-faced young woman and a flighty girl with braided knots in her hair - chatted curiously with her, teasing her country accent and asking where she came from. They were the children of wealthier families in the cities. She marveled at their fur coats and cloche hats, the soft leather of their purses. Her own coat was old, the buttons twisted in the traditional Chinese sense, something that seemed old-fashioned beside these rich young women's Western fashions.

When they finally dragged their trunks off the train in Chicago, a photographer was waiting to take their photos. For the paper, he said. So they clustered together, wearing their best coats, their faces both eager and intimidated. She would never see the developed photo, but if she had, she would have noticed that her magic hung about her in a halo that the camera picked up, obscuring her face behind a haze.

It took her a moment longer to notice the lady waiting for her by the train platform. She was small, her back slightly rounded in a hunch, and when she stretched a hand out in greeting, her fingers were long and graceful.

"Welcome to Chicago," the lady told her in Mandarin, "and to your training in the art of magic. I see you have been blessed with great fortune."

She blinked. It was the first time anyone had ever looked pleased to see her, and she was so surprised that she replied, "I am the fourth sister in my family, so I am the bringer of misfortune."

The woman shook her head. "That is impossible, you see, for I can tell that you have been gifted with the magic of luck. That is how your application somehow ended up at our office, and how I noticed the shimmer of magic on the paper. I will teach you how to wield it."

The rice harvest and the diverted storm. The early rains and the smooth voyage. Good fortune. It was the first time anyone had given that identity to her, but she'd had it all along.

She smiled. Then she fell into step beside the woman and never looked back.
Why this photo: I was drawn to these young women's beautiful fashion sense, and struck by the fact that they were female Chinese students arriving in Chicago. Considering that Chinese women were banned from the United States in 1875 with the Page Act, the first U.S. federal law restricting immigration and one that laid the groundwork for the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, I was moved to see these young women arriving in the same country that wanted them out. - M.L.
Marie Lu is the New York Times best-selling author of the "Young Elites," "Legend," and "Warcross" series. She worked as a video-game artist before turning to writing full-time. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Oct. 10, 1958
KARACHI, Pakistan - A sea Jinn appeared Thursday at Bohri Bazaar market in Karachi, terrifying patrons of a small drugstore and causing widespread panic just days after President Iskander Mirza declared martial law in Pakistan.

The creature's diminutive stature initially fooled patrons of Aftab Drugstore into thinking it was a mere Ghul, the smaller, less violent cousin of the Jinn.

"Then it grabbed me," said Farkhanda Aftab, 7, the daughter of the store's owner, Yousef Aftab. "And it screamed. It felt like knives in my ears. I thought I would die."

At the sight of the Jinn, patrons fled into the streets of the bazaar, overturning bicycle rickshaws and ox carts, and nearly causing a stampede.

Fortunately for Farkhanda, local fisherman Sahib Muhammad, who regularly visits the drugstore, also finds himself tangling with Jinn on stormy days in Karachi's harbor.

"A prayer and a warning is usually all that is required to dispatch them," Mr. Muhammad said. "However this one was stubborn."

After the Jinn latched onto the girl, neither prayer nor words worked, and Mr. Muhammad was forced to pry Miss Aftab from the Jinn. Her screams alerted nearby army troops, but by the time they arrived, the sea Jinn had vanished.

In a city already on edge, the presence of a Jinn in an area heavily populated by humans seemed to many to be a sign that more instability was on the horizon.

"Mirza's days are numbered," a local chaiwallah, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said of Pakistan's embattled president. "You cannot dissolve political parties without consequence. He'll be gone by the end of the month and the Jinn know it."

Fozia Mohsin, a local resident, agreed. "The Jinn are not fools," Mr. Mohsin said. "They like havoc. There will be more sightings. Maybe even attacks on humans. They want to take over."

But Inayat Aag of Tribe Sumandar, who spoke on behalf of the Council for the Unified Defense of Jinn Liberties, or "Cudjl," disagreed.

"We have no interest in inserting ourselves into the affairs of humans, particularly with political unrest so high," Mr. Aag said from the mangrove swamps of Korangi Creek, where the Jinn have been isolated since the partition of India and Pakistan. "If a Jinn made an incursion into human territory and laid hands on a human child, he will be found and dealt with according to Jinn law. President Mirza may have abrogated the human constitution, but the 1947 Jinn Independence Act still holds. We are Jinn. We are apart."

An army spokesman, Capt. Cyrus Tata, urged calm. "The presence of Jinn in an otherwise safe neighborhood is proof that martial law is not only necessary, but essential. The law will protect both Jinn and humans, until the political situation can be resolved."

Captain Tata declined to comment further on which political "situation" he was referring to, but recently obtained diplomatic cables indicate that Gen. Ayub Khan, who was appointed the chief martial law administrator by Mr. Mirza less than a week ago, may soon be making a move to cement his own power.

"Preposterous," Captain Tata said. "General Mirza is committed to the peace and prosperity of this country, Jinn and human alike."

Back in Bohri Bazaar, Mr. Aftab assured neighborhood residents that his drugstore was safe.

"We've hired a guard who will work until curfew," he said, "and are offering one free Gleem toothpaste to anyone who makes a purchase over 5 rupees."

"The Jinn is gone, anyway," his young daughter added. "But maybe he wasn't trying to scare me. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he just wanted to talk."
Why this photo: This photograph spoke to me first because of the little girl and man looking at the camera, who seemed familiar to me in a visceral way, as if they are family members I've never met. And second because as a child visiting Pakistan (Lahore, to be specific), I always made up stories in my head about the incredible places I visited, from drugstores and rail stations to big markets like Liberty or Anarkali. You won't see such places on Western "bucket lists," but they should be, because they are wonderful - and filled with fascinating stories. - S.T.
Sabaa Tahir is the author of the New York Times best-selling "An Ember in the Ashes" series, which has been translated into more than 35 languages. She grew up in California's Mojave Desert at her family's 18-room motel.

Rabbit watched the men tilt the heavy console into place and plug it in. The screen blinked pixel mosaics as it woke from its long sleep.

Egg and Fox came crashing in to the arcade. They flung down their backpacks as if they lived there.

"No way," shouted Egg, who was the youngest one.

"My God," said Fox, lowering his Walkman headphones. Fox was the slim one.

Rabbit was the tall one, and had what Fox called tired old man eyes.

The boys stepped toward the console like young knights.
Street Fighter.
"I'm ready," said Fox, who held a handful of coins. Fox always had coins. His dad did plenty of business in Japan and brought back treasures, like Fox's Sony Boodo Khan Special Edition Walkman. Boodo Khan was a stadium in Tokyo that was a hundred times bigger than Ulsan, Fox once claimed.

Egg had plenty of coins, too.

Rabbit never had coins. But Egg and Fox never noticed or cared, which Rabbit was thankful for.

Rabbit avoided going to either Egg's or Fox's homes, because of the questions lurking there. Where does your dad work? What does your mom cook for dinner?

He preferred the arcade. There, neither Egg nor Fox could see what went on in Rabbit's head, which Rabbit was also thankful for. Because Rabbit spent most of his time wishing.

Rabbit had wished for so long for things to be different that he didn't know what it was like not to wish.

But different how?

Fox slotted in a coin and hit the 1 PLAYER button.

COUNTRY SELECT

Rabbit frowned. "Why's it only Japan or USA?"

"Cause Japan's got all the cool stuff," said Fox.

"Also USA," said Egg.

"Maybe there's a Korea later," said Rabbit.

Round 1, yelled the game, and Ryu appeared: a muscled man in a white dobok with the sleeves ripped off. The boys guessed at the controls, which were all in Japanese, and found that Ryu could back flip, leg sweep, uppercut, roundhouse and who knew what else. He faced a bald monk named Retsu.

"I don't know what I'm doing," yelled Fox, and proved it by losing two rounds in quick succession. A ticking time bomb appeared: CONTINUE? Above the bomb was a countdown. If they didn't deposit coins in time, they would have to start the game over from the beginning.

"All foreigner welcome," cried Old Mama in English. She pressed play. The music was in English, too.

This house was Old Mama's house.

A door opened, and Mom - Rabbit's real mom - appeared in a glittery tube dress she called New Wave.

Mom touched Rabbit's chin. "Do your homework, O.K.? Old Mama will bring your dinner."

"O.K."

Mom headed to the front. Rabbit heard her call out the awful words: "Let's play."

Rabbit slid his door shut. Footsteps fell heavy on the floor above him. Mom was a fortune teller. A fortune teller, a fortune teller, telling fortunes for fun.

Rabbit drew in his notebook: Ryu kicking 50 men off a cliff, clapping men's heads flat with his hands.

Old Mama appeared with soup and rice and kimchi and fish. She cast an eye about. "You're gonna need a bigger room pretty soon, kid."

She left. Alone, Rabbit ate. He did his homework. He pawed through a crushed magazine and read - again - how Mike Tyson's Punch-Out was coming soon for Famicom. It looked primitive compared to Street Fighter, he told himself. Nowhere near as cool.

"Promise," said Old Mama.

From the front, a small male voice: "Hello?"

Old Mama rose, shuffled toward the front, and flipped the cassette. Mom rose too. She knelt. She touched Rabbit's chin with the back of her hand.

"Everything's going to change," she whispered, with her smile done in red. "Everything's going to get better." And she slid the door shut.

In the dark, Rabbit could see Ryu take a hit. He could see him fall to the ground. He looked almost like he was asleep on his side. But he wasn't. Because here came the ticking time bomb now, counting down, asking the question: CONTINUE?
Why this photo: I was not that much older than these boys when this photo was taken. It intrigues me to think that this could've been me if my parents hadn't immigrated to the United States. Our fate depends so much on forces we can't see and on choices made before we can even speak. - D.Y.
David Yoon is a writer and designer who created the illustrations for the New York Times best-selling novel "Everything, Everything." His first novel is "Frankly in Love." He grew up in Orange County, Calif.
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Xavier stood apart from the crowd, leaning against the concrete pillar, black knit cap pulled low over his ears and hands buried deep in the pockets of a threadbare coat, which still smelled of the St. Anthony's donation bin. His sister's ghost was with him, as always, silent as a shadow.

It was an overcast and cold New York City morning, but their kababayan didn't mind. They were all grins and chants and protest posters, hands raised in Ls for "Laban": Fight. It was a decent-size group but only a diasporic echo of the joy and excitement on the other side of the world that packed every lane of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue for miles back in Manila.

Xavier glanced at PJ. If she were still alive, she wouldn't be standing in the back with him. She wouldn't even be content to lose herself in the crowd. No, his sister would be hopping on the hoods of cars, dancing with strangers, shouting through a megaphone for everyone to tear down the barbed-wire barriers, raid Imelda's closet and sell all the shoes to feed the poor.

It's not that Xavier wasn't glad. It's not that he wasn't relieved. It's just that he wasn't very hopeful. As a student of history, he always felt the heaviness of time weighing on his shoulders. He knew that revolutions were fragile things, quick to flight but hollow-boned underfoot. Yes, excitement filled today, but what about those they lost? And what about tomorrow?

PJ always called him a coward when he refused to go to the protests with her, and maybe she'd been right. Even now he couldn't shake the low-level fear that had followed him across an ocean.

A white man walking past stopped in front of Xavier, pulling Xavier back to the present. The man wore an expensive suit and a heavy overcoat, like the people whose trash cans Xavier emptied. In one leather-gloved hand, the man carried a briefcase, in the other, a folded newspaper. "What's going on here?" he asked, gazing at the crowd. When Xavier didn't immediately answer, the man turned to face him. "You speak English?"

"It's Marcos," Xavier said, ignoring the second question. "He's done."

"Who?"

But what could he possibly say to someone who could even ask that question? The answer was decades long, thousands of bodies deep.

With his lips, Xavier pointed at the man's paper, which bore the story - albeit an abbreviated version - on the front page. "That just for looks?"

"They'll forget. Or they won't care. That might be worse."

PJ sighed. "So you're still a coward, then? You were afraid to join me in the streets, now you're afraid to put pen to paper?"

Xavier took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. "You were always the brave one, Ate. Not me. That's why I'm in this foreign country, so far from home, and you're..."

"Dead."

"Right."

The clouds shifted. The crowd started up a new chant. A few passing cars honked in either solidarity or annoyance.

"At least you're out here," PJ said after some time.

"Where did you expect me to be at a moment like this?"

Instead of answering, PJ gestured toward the crowd. "But are you ever going to join them?"

"I missed the boat, Ate. The revolution's over already."

She shook her head. "It's never over, brother. You should know that. Or is this just another excuse?"

Xavier considered this for a long time. Then he sighed, pulled his cap back on and pushed off the wall. He crossed the sidewalk and stood at the edge of the group. A short, old woman who looked like his lola welcomed him with a smile and wrapped an arm around his waist. Xavier returned the smile and then raised his hand in the Laban signal for the first time in his life. He felt like an impostor, but maybe that's how everyone felt at first.

"Happy now?" he said to PJ.

But his sister was already gone. The only shadow that remained was his own.
Why this photo: I'm always thinking about those who aren't centered in an image or a story or a society, so this photo immediately captured my attention as I considered those who weren't in the picture and why. Given the Philippines' current administration, I was also interested in writing a story that could explore the connection between the People Power Revolution that ousted Marcos and our current moment in history. -R.R.
Randy Ribay is the author of "Patron Saints of Nothing," "After the Shot Drops" and "An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes." He was born in the Philippines and now lives in California.
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Babr woke at dawn to the muezzin's call and the swoosh swoosh of street sweepers. He was tired. But even with the pain in his right arm from sleeping shoulder to cement, and despite the weight of memory, he felt the grace of small joys.

He rose from under the shadow of the Rajabai Clock Tower, which sits atop the storied spiral-stair vestibule of the University of Mumbai. On hot nights, the air in the tiny windowless room he shared with the other darban was stifling - the smell of their cleaning supplies and sweat-stained clothes overwhelming. So on clear evenings, he would climb the winding stairs to offer Isha prayers before drifting to sleep under the open skies, seeing the face of his beloved in the fading stars.

Stretching, he felt the creak of old age in his knees. He wrapped his worn green shawl, which also served as a sleeping mat, around his shoulders and adjusted the topi on his head. Patting his chest to check for the hidden pocket sewn into his shirt, Babr smiled. He was not the ingenious tailor his wife had been, but he believed she would have been proud of his efforts, even if the money in his pocket had been obtained through deception. For what did this place, established by the British and built in the image of their great universities, stand for but dishonesty? Perhaps he was not a finely educated man, but he understood well enough that the foundation of the Raj had been a clever deceit - the idea that the Angrez knew what was better for India than Indians did.

He yawned and rubbed his face vigorously to wake up. He touched his hidden pocket once more and felt last evening's bounty. The nightly carnival at the Gateway of India had proven especially lucrative during yesterday's pre-election festivities.

*

In the days before the election, Babr had observed the tourists and their habits. Then he concocted a dry bhang masala - a more organic alternative to the bhang lassi, he assured his buyers, than what is available at any of the Government Authorized Bhang Shops. Unlike the dozens of other drug-wallahs asking, "Smoke? Smoke?" to every staggering traveler, Babr had a marketing plan. You didn't smoke his bhang or sip it in a sweet yogurt drink, but rather could discreetly mix it into your soda without risk of detection by the police.

Of course, there was no such thing as dry bhang masala.

But Angrez tourists did not know this. Bhang was a pistachio green paste of crushed marijuana leaves blended with milk, almonds and spices, but Babr's bhang was a heady concoction of crushed curry leaves and cumin, with few actual buds of cannabis. Babr carefully divided his bhang into little cheesecloth potlis that he sold for the galling price of 50 rupees. The Angrez all too willing to pay for a taste of the authentic India.

Babr had celebrated his fortune by treating himself to a full thali - rice, aloo palak, daal, chappati, pappadum, raita, chana. But he ate with a lump in his throat remembering his wife, who had always taken special delight in Election Day, preparing a feast fit for the end of Ramadan and stringing a jasmine garland through her braid.

When the last of the carnival's fireworks had fizzled out, Babr hitched a ride back to the university.

*

This year as ever, elections brought threats of anti-Muslim violence enflamed by the fearmongering rhetoric of the ruling party. But Babr's wife had taught him hope, holding precious her pride in being Indian, reminding him that the Des had been ripped apart for him to have this opportunity. The blood of his own family and so many families filling cracked earth. He remembered his mother weeping for the sister who had gone to Pakistan and whom she would never see again. This had confused him as a young boy, but five years ago, when his wife died, he understood how the human body could be cleaved in two, never to be whole again.

As Babr approached his polling place on foot, he heard a brass band and the joyous beats of the dhol, a barrel-shaped, double-sided drum. To Babr, it was the sound of India. He took his place in line, all smiles, shaking his head as party supporters descended on the voters, cajoling, making promises, cutting deals.

When at last it was Babr's turn, a sweaty man with a district badge ushered him to a table where Babr presented his government identification and where they marked his left finger with special ink. Babr watched the purple streak widen across his nail, into the crevices of his skin.

"It will wash off in two weeks," the election official assured him.

The next officer sat outside the voting booth and pressed a button that released a new ballot. He asked, "Do you know how to vote?" Babr nodded. He had also voted in the last election with an electronic voting machine. He knew what to do.

Babr walked outside of the school, blinking against the bright sunlight. He looked down at the crowd of waiting voters and raised his left index finger above his head. A couple lingering dhol players slapped out beats, and his fellow Bombayites let out a cheer, a few dancing in place.

Babr had the sudden youthful urge to run down the street into the afternoon sun. He ran at full speed. He stopped at the next street, bending over, panting, hands on his knees. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Babr crossed the road to the sweet shop where he selected a burfi and a ladoo, his wife's favorites.

Babr marched back toward the university and his life of cleaning up after rich students, pain in his knees, and days that held no promises. He walked to his spiral tower and prayers whispered to the heavens. He walked with his beloved's heart in his heart. He walked on the streets of a free India, ancient and ever new.
Why this photo: I was immediately drawn to the tower photo because it feels like a fairy tale but it's also part of my actual origin story. My parents met each other under the shadow of this tower when they were studying architecture at the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai). Years later and a few miles away, I was born at Bombay Hospital. - S.A.
Samira Ahmed is the New York Times best-selling author of "Love, Hate & Other Filters" and "Internment." She was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in a small town in Illinois.
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Did you know the horizon is a seam that opens every 12 years, when the zodiac resets and the pig is eaten by the rat? At dusk the crack becomes a mouth and the mouth gapes wide and winged creatures of every shape ascend into our sky, then descend upon our streets.

This is what I've been told by Yima, the aunt who raised me because my parents could not. I don't even remember what my parents looked like, but Yima - who sings to me as she braids my hair into loops, and cooks me sweet broth with red sugar and ginger when my monthly pains set in - she's all that I need.

I was 3 the last time the seam opened. I don't really remember that either, except that Yima likes to recount the story of how I tried to bargain with a honeybee. She tells it so often the words have sculpted themselves into a memory of my own.

It's the Lunar New Year and so last night they came, undeterred by the firecrackers that sounded like war. In the morning light I see them outside in the form of sparrows and herons, locusts and cicadas. I point to the window and Yima smiles faintly.

"Such beautiful spring blossoms," she says, because she is old and her mind has changed, like a piece of glass scratched until it's opaque. There are no flowers to be seen. Only wisps of incense drifting over from the neighbors', and shreds of red paper from last night's fireworks littering the ground. Only those winged creatures perched on the clotheslines, on the seat and handlebars of a parked moped.

I open the door and scatter peanuts over the cobblestones in case they're hungry. They show no interest, only blink at me, eerily silent.

I'd thought perhaps they were here to tell me something. Now the idea seems foolish.

Embarrassed, I turn to go back in and nearly crash into Yima, who has forgotten her cane and instead grips the wall.

"What are you doing?" she hisses. "Don't encourage them."

Her tone and lucidness surprise me, as does the terrible expression tightening her face. I let her pull me inside, let the door slam shut. What does she mean, encourage them?

All day, Yima goes back and forth: One moment she runs her knuckles along my cheek, saying, "You were such a small thing when you came to me. A little jewel." And in a blink she's rapping on the window, huffing and glaring at the winged things outside.

In those times when the clouds in her head part, she seems angry and scared. I wish I knew of an herbal broth I could brew to soothe her mind. Instead, I rub ointment into her palms, into the soles of her feet. I sing the songs she taught me, tell silly stories to make her laugh. Yima's smile shines warmer than sunlight.

By dinnertime, as she cleans the water spinach and I chop garlic, it occurs to me she's never explained why those creatures come. What do they want?

When I voice the question she drops the water spinach and turns to me with fearful eyes. "You are so precious to me. You know I would do anything for you?"

"Yes, of course." She's so upset I don't ask anything else. But what is it that I don't know? How do I help?

Early in the predawn morning, when she's still sleeping, I peek around the door to see if the peanuts are still there. I could try offering vegetable scraps, or at least water. Perhaps if I show that I mean no harm, they'll tell me why they're here. If I can get them what they want, they'll go away, and Yima will be untroubled again.

The creatures begin to shriek the moment I step outside. I clap my palms over my ears, and then Yima's hand is on my shoulder. She's out of breath from hurrying, and she stumbles past me, falls onto the cobblestones with a weak mewing sound. Before I can do anything, the beasts are upon her. Crows tear at her hair and sparrows peck at her eyes. Bees hum over every patch of skin and cicadas crawl between her fingers. They screech even as they feast upon her. The sound is an unbearable storm that brings me to my knees.

Light seeps into the sky. Dawn. The neighbors come out to see the source of the cacophony, then disappear and return with bamboo sticks, with brooms and blankets. They swat with their sticks and drum upon their bowls. The creatures scatter, rising up with the first rays of the sun. Everyone cheers. They've forgotten about me, still crouched on the cobblestones with tears dripping from my chin.

After the neighbors have all gone, a man and woman help me to my feet. They look middle-aged and tired. I invite them in for tea, and they tend to my skinned knees, and then they show me a photo of a baby. They claim that it's me.

"She stole you from us," they tell me. "She cursed us so that we couldn't come for you. But now she's gone. Now we can have our precious daughter back."

The hunger in their eyes makes my heart pound. I run back outside, and see that the winged things have returned. They're just as eerily silent as yesterday. I dive toward them, throwing myself to the ground. Sure enough, they come. They eat my skin and my hair, my eyes and my fingers. They make such quick work of it, it doesn't even hurt. I feel my bones falling away, puzzle pieces being loosened from their fit. I hear the man and woman screaming, but it sounds very distant.

The creatures rise up into the air with all the bits of me distributed between their bellies.

I inhale the scent of the sky and think, Yima, I'm coming for you.

Why this photo: I loved this photograph immediately because I saw in it some kind of otherworldly exchange. Even after I read the caption ("Youths chase sparrows from the Summer Palace.") I couldn't shake the thought that these people were looking up at something preternatural. Then came the question: What if they didn't realize what they were smiling at? - E.X.R.P.
Emily X.R. Pan is the New York Times best-selling author of "The Astonishing Color of After," which won an Asian/Pacific American Award Honor for Young Adult Literature and a Walter Award Honor. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Walking all the way across the gym toward Mari after weeks of silence is torture. But I make myself do it because I need her back in my life, and I need to tell her now, in person, before I lose my nerve. I've tried texting her, obviously, but she's blocked me on everything.

Mari's dancing with Rosie, Seema, Jayce and Jayce's idiot friends. The girls are all decent dancers, but the boys - I mean, what is it with boys and dancing, anyway? Some of them are O.K., but a lot of them just sort of jab their hips from side to side like giant windshield wipers. Jayce is bouncing around in his stupid sagged pants and his stupid sideways snapback like he's some kind of hip-hop hypebeast icon and not a suburban white wannabe.

Mari, of course, is doing her own thing - that spacey, arm-wavey, head-noddy hippie dance she always does whether the D.J. plays ASAP Rocky, Taylor Swift or BTS. It's completely derpy, and also completely adorable.

She has to listen to me. She has to come back to me.

I push through the dancers and the human windshield wipers, and Rosie shoots a look my way that practically freezes my soul. But I keep going because I am a woman on a mission.

Then I'm standing in front of Mari, and she's looking at me like what do you want?

"I have to tell you something," I say.

She takes a beat longer to think about this than I would have thought was absolutely necessary, but then she says, "Um. O.K."

Which is when Jayce blows in on a gust of cologne and drapes his arm over her shoulders. Ugghhh. Why.

"Hey, Yoon!" he says. I hate it when people who hardly know me shorten my name like we're friends or something, but Jayce is probably too clueless to realize that we aren't friends and I hate him. Or possibly he's just being a jerk.

"Hey, Jayce," I say. Be nice, Yuna. Be. Nice.

"Hey, babe," he says to Mari next. Old Mari would have rolled her eyes because who says hey babe, but New Mari sweetly hey babes him back, and it's a major, major, major battle for me not to roll my eyes hard enough for the two of us, grab her hand and walk away.

"Hey, Yoon," says Jayce again. "We're going to slide to Seema's later for a party. Wanna come? It's gonna be liiiit," and he mimes smoking a joint, which is the biggest bunch of BS ever because everyone knows that Seema's parents would never allow her to have a party, let alone a party with weed.

So I say, "No you're not."

"Naw, f'real," says Hip-Hop McSlangypants. "No caps."

I say, "I think it's 'no cap,' actually." Even I know that.

"Thanks, Yuna. I really appreciate how much you care," Mari deadpans, and I panic.

"Mari, I'm sorry. That's not what I - "

Rosie appears at Mari's side and says in a voice that's barely this side of a snarl, "Just leave, Yuna. She's moved on."

That knocks the breath out of me. Reeling, I do what I always do when I'm hurt: pretend I don't care. I shape my mouth into a smile and say, "Oh, right. Sorry to intrude. Have fun getting liiiiit."

I turn and make the long, lonely trek back across the gym.

I walk fast, but not too fast, like I don't even care, like I have better things to do than hang with these losers. I don't turn around, not even once. At the door, I sneak a peek over my shoulder to see what kind of impression my dignified exit has made. But they're already dancing again, as if they've forgotten all about me.
Why this photo: Something about this photograph made me feel as if I was in the crowd but not of it, which is a feeling that I love to write about. The scowl (and the lipstick) on the woman in the center of the frame grabbed my attention immediately, but the lone woman on the right intrigued me, too; after trying to write from each of their perspectives, I finally settled on writing as the ultimate outsider - the viewer. My story is a contemporary American riff on the photograph, but I love knowing that Tokyo had a Western-style club scene in the '50s and that drew me in as well. - M.S.
Misa Sugiura is the author of "This Time Will Be Different" and "It's Not Like It's a Secret," which won an Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. She grew up outside Chicago.
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"Always start with the eye."

Hongyue watched as Shen laoshi dipped his calligraphy brush with one swift, elegant motion into the ink stone, then swiped the brush head against its side, intuitively and without thought. He then painted the bird's eye with small, precise strokes on the near-translucent rice paper.

She had observed her art teacher demonstrate countless times before, but could never get over the awe she felt when he painted for them. Within minutes sometimes, with a fluidity and assuredness that made her envious, a creature would suddenly appear on the paper: a hummingbird or a rabbit or a horse.

Like magic.

"Because if you don't capture the spirit of your subject in its gaze" - Shen laoshi continued to paint as he lectured - "there is no point in going forward. No matter how technically correct your painting might be, how perfect your strokes, none of that matters." His hand danced over the rice paper, and his entire body shifted with him as he painted. A sharp beak appeared, then the bird's head, followed by a tufted chest in gray.

"As brush artists, we aren't replicating precisely what our eyes see. We are not photographers." He lifted his chin then and grinned at them, the handful of students clustered at the large walnut table around him. "As artists, we infuse life with our brush strokes." A wing emerged, the round body then the tail, its feathers appeared with quick and bold strokes before he swirled his brush in a bowl of clear water. Her teacher then dashed a streak of orange on top of the bird's head and a dab on its beak. Pausing, he considered the small painting before adding a fat gray worm, dangling from the bird's pointed beak.

"Our aim is to elicit emotion through our art. To touch this" - he tapped two fingertips against his chest - "that is the way we connect and speak to the viewer." He finally whisked long, thin strokes of verdant green around the plump bird, suggesting wild grass, before setting the calligraphy brush down. "This is your next assignment, to paint a bird of your choice and capture its spirit on paper." He nodded once and took a step back, so Hongyue and her fellow classmates could examine his painting closely. No one spoke as they studied the bird. She noted the delicate variations of ink from black to the most subtle gray, a whisper on the page.

Her teacher made it look so easy, effortless. But Hongyue knew better. She often felt her heart lifting as she painted, her focus only on her creation. But what she intended to express on paper almost never came to fruition as she wanted. Lacking.

She thanked her teacher respectfully before saying farewell, just like all her other Chinese classmates did. The humidity hit her like a wall the moment she stepped outside Shen laoshi's ground-floor studio. New York City's Chinatown was filled with throngs of people out on a Saturday afternoon, grocery shopping and meeting with friends to eat at the various small cafes and restaurants lining the cramped streets. She navigated the crowds instinctively, with her head down, watching her red Converse move across the filthy sidewalks as she mulled over everything her teacher had said.

Instead of going straight home to the cramped one-bedroom tenement she shared with her mom and younger brother, she veered from the familiar path and ducked into Columbus Park. The mostly concrete plaza was as busy as the main streets. Seniors huddled at various stone tables, many playing Chinese chess. Some sat on wooden benches, reading the Chinese paper, while others chatted animatedly in Cantonese and Mandarin, exchanging gossip and sharing pieces of cut fruit.

Hongyue managed to find an empty bench in the far corner of the park, underneath a large tree. Leaning back against the hard wooden slats, she absorbed the energetic hum around her, the mingling of voices and movement, how the barely-there summer breeze rustled the leaves overhead, stirring the straight, black bangs of a little girl intently eating an ice cream cone. A sharp trill from above caught Hongyue's attention, and she lifted her head up. A small bird perched in the hollow of the tree spiraling above her bench. It had a bright yellow head, throat and chest, with gray wings highlighted in white lines - perfect for painting.

The bird continued to sing its song, alternately sticking its tail out so Hongyue got a clear view of it before turning and offering her an opportunity to study its head and chest. It had a thick beak and looked briefly down at her with black eyes. She enjoyed its singing for a few minutes before an old Chinese woman stopped nearby, following Hongyue's gaze. "Ah, a warbler," she said in a raspy voice. "I love listening to them." She squinted at the bird, the corners of her eyes creasing with deep lines. "This one is female," she went on. "Their color is not as bright." The woman closed her eyes, obviously enjoying the warbler's trilling song. "I love birds," she said, opening her eyes and meeting Hongyue's gaze. "Don't you?"

Hongyue nodded. "They're a classic brush painting subject."

The old woman's eyebrows lifted. "Indeed." She smiled and dipped her chin as if she were a queen, then walked on.

Hongyue glanced at the bright warbler again, tucked in the small hollow, before heading home.

The apartment was empty when she let herself in.

She quickly gathered her brush painting supplies, wanting to capture the bird she still saw so clearly in her mind's eye. Spreading sheets of the Chinese newspaper on the small, square kitchen table set against the window, Hongyue filled a ceramic bowl with water, then spooned a little into her ink stone. She ground fresh ink. When she was satisfied the ink was dark enough, she placed a new sheet of rice paper onto the table.

Usually, Hongyue painted slowly and with care, stopping often to gauge her progress. But today, she put brush to paper without hesitation, remembering the bird's keen gaze as she started with its eye as Shen laoshi had instructed, the quick movements of its head, and the swish of its tail. She heard the clear notes of the warbler's birdsong as she tinged its crown and nape in green, then painted delicate white lines on its wings. Astounded, she took a step back when she realized she had finished without pausing, as if compelled. The spirited yellow bird she had glimpsed less than an hour ago stared back at her from the page.

Only one thing was missing.

Hongyue gathered white paint into a sharp point on her brush and dotted the bird's eye, adding light to its gaze. She let out a breath, then grinned widely, her chest filling with pride.

When she set her brush down, one sharp trill filled the kitchen.

Her hand jerked, and the brush rolled off the ceramic rest. Hongyue slanted her head and glanced out the window. The dark panes of other tenements stared back at her. Had she imagined it? Another sharp note reverberated through the small kitchen, and she thrust the window open and leaned over the table, sticking her nose out. No birds were near the narrow ledge; a taxi's insistent honking the only noise from outside.

She drew back inside, but yelped when a flurry of movement darted past her vision, lifting a strand of her hair. Then it was gone; Hongyue blinked her eyes hard.

The sound of the deadbolt unlocking broke her reverie, and she heard her mom's and brother's voices behind the closed door. Excited, she reached for the bird painting to show them, then snatched her arm back.

Her mom found Hongyue frozen at the kitchen table, hand fisted over her chest, staring down at a pristine sheet of rice paper.

Mrs. Li smiled and asked, "What will you paint today, daughter?"
Why this photo: I was delighted to see this image of Chinese brush artists in New York City's Chinatown. I've been a student of Chinese brush painting for almost two decades, and this creative expression has really become intrinsic to my own identity. It's very rarely I get an opportunity to write about something so important to me in fiction. I'm so grateful I was able to in this piece. -C.P.
Cindy Pon is a writer and a longtime student of Chinese brush painting. She is the author of "Want," "Serpentine" and "Silver Phoenix." She grew up in Los Angeles.
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Top image: A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

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Viewfinders: 10 Y.A. Novelists Spin Fiction From Vintage Photos (Published 2019)

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A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois. Past Tense The New York Times invited Asian-American authors to choose photos from our archives and write short young-adult fiction inspired by them. A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

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To create an engaging narrative, it is important to understand the four different types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. (Check out the following video to review the types of sentences.) It is also important to use a variety of sentences. When you review your writing, you should identify the types of sentences. Notice patterns. Play with sentence structure to create an engaging story.
Helpful Hint: Check out an anchor text. Identify the types of sentences that the author used, and notice how the author uses sentence structure to create an engaging piece.

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A simple sentence contains one independent clause.

What's an "independent clause"? It's one subject followed by one verb or verb phrase. It expresses a single idea.
Examples of simple sentences:
Notice that a "simple sentence" isn't necessarily short. The subject can be a single word like "I" or "Robert," or it can be a double subject like "my brother and I," or it can be multiple words describing a single person/object, like "This new laptop computer."

A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by a linking word (and, but, or, so, yet, however).

Each independent clause could be a sentence by itself, but we connect them with a linking word:

Note that each sentence has TWO subjects and TWO verb phrases.

A complex sentence has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

A dependent clause cannot be a complete sentence by itself.

I'm happy, even though I don't make much money.

Robert, a friend I've known since high school, doesn't eat meat.

After getting home from work, my brother and I went to the mall last night.

This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice.

Compound-Complex Sentence

A compound-complex sentence contains 3 or more clauses: 2 independent and at least 1 dependent clause.

I'm happy, even though I don't make much money, but my kids are always complaining since we can't afford to buy the newest toys.
Independent clauses: "I'm happy" and "my kids are always complaining"
Dependent clauses: "even though I don't make much money" and "since we can't afford to buy the newest toys"
Linking word: "but"

Robert, a friend I've known since high school, doesn't eat meat - so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him.

Independent clauses: "Robert doesn't eat meat" and "Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him"
Dependent clause: "a friend I've known since high school"
Linking word: "so"

After getting home from work, my brother and I went to the mall last night, while my sister stayed home and studied.

Independent clauses: "My brother and I went to the mall last night" and "my sister stayed home and studied"
Dependent clause: "After getting home from work"
Linking word: "while"

This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice; however, I have no idea why.

Independent clauses: "This new laptop computer has already crashed twice" and "I have no idea why"
Dependent clause: "which I bought yesterday"
Linking word: "however"

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English Sentence Structure: 4 Types of English Sentences

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A simple sentence contains one independent clause. What's an "independent clause"? It's one subject followed by one verb or verb phrase. It expresses a single idea. Examples of simple sentences: Notice that a "simple sentence" isn't necessarily short.

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Another way to make your writing come to life, is to consider the details. The details are what make your story special. Compare this bland sentence: George ate his cereal quickly. To this descriptive one: George shoveled in his cereal, spilling milk on his black t-shirt and making his little sister cringe. The second one gives you a lot more information. If you feel like you need more practice, use the following document to practice zooming in for details. Once you feel ready, go back into your story and highlight areas that could use some zooming-in. (You could also ask a friend to help you figure this out.)

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Writer's Digest produced a short video that depicts different scene archetypes that you may encounter when reading narratives. After viewing this ask yourself if your story could benefit from a particular type of scene. If you scroll down a little further, you will find some excellent questions to further your thinking about the scenes in your story.

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The following is excerpted from the online course The Art of Storytelling 101: Story Mapping and Pacing by Terri Valentine, which explores style, concepts, characters, and how to write strong scenes. Learn more about the course and register at Writer's Digest University.
Practically speaking, scenes are the irreducible matter of novels. The success or failure of a novel often depends on each scene doing its share of the heavy lifting. Scenes are not the same as chapters: A chapter may contain one or many scenes.

Beginning writers often focus their attention on a few "important" scenes that they think are the heart of the novel and will wow the readers. The remaining scenes are treated as information dumps (passive talking-head scenes delivering necessary information), transition scenes (moving characters to different settings), or establishing scenes (introducing us to minor characters, settings, and secondary plot lines). In reality, these scenes are more plentiful and do more foundation-building work than the flashier "important" scenes.

The video above describes three types of scenes you can use, and the tips below provide questions you can ask when you're looking to hone those scenes in the revision process.

...

How to Write Strong Scenes: 4 Key Questions to Evaluate Your Scene

It helps to think of each scene as a separate short story, able to stand on its own. As such, it should have a dynamic opening which thrusts the reader right into the scene. It should have a middle that delivers something essential to the novel as a whole. It should have an ending that generates enough suspense to compel the reader into the next scene. And all this needs to be done in an entertaining way.

One technique that helps writers polish scenes is to copy and paste individual scenes into separate documents when you want to edit them. Once you physically remove a scene from the context of the rest of the novel, it's much easier to focus on all the necessary elements. This slows your editing process because you're not thinking about the next scene.

Another technique is to examine the scene to make sure it is necessary. Sometimes writers spend a lot of time polishing a scene that they know doesn't quite work in the story.

They think the problem is with the technique, when in fact it's with justifying the existence of the scene in the first place. Maybe it isn't needed at all. To determine whether or not your scene has fulfilled a key function, consider the following:
1. The Plot Focus:
The purpose of this scene is to ________________________________________.

(example: The purpose of this scene is to reveal the protagonist's childhood abuses in order to provide motivation for her current actions.)
2. The Character Focus:
When the audience finishes this scene, they should feel ____________________.

(example: When the audience finishes this scene, they should feel sympathy for the protagonist, yet be skeptical of her reliability as a narrator.)

3. The Theme Focus:
When the audience finishes this scene, they should think____________________.

(example: When the audience finishes this scene, they should think that the protagonist has been using these abuses as an excuse for many other self-destructive actions.)

4. The Suspense Focus:
When the audience finishes this scene, they should wonder _________________.

(example: When the audience finishes this scene, they should wonder if the protagonist will be able to overcome the horror of her childhood in order to reunite with her estranged mother.)
Learn more in this upcoming online course:

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there are no rules blog by the editors of writer's digest

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How to Write Strong Scenes: 4 Key Questions to Evaluate Your Scene

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The following is excerpted from the online course The Art of Storytelling 101: Story Mapping and Pacing by Terri Valentine, which explores style, concepts, characters, and how to write strong scenes. Learn more about the course and register at Writer's Digest University. Practically speaking, scenes are the irreducible matter of novels.

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A helpful exercise when trying to write your introduction, is to climb back into narratives that you love. How do these narratives begin? Mirror your own writing after these. If you don't know where to begin, check out the following first lines...

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Do you LOVE a movie, television show, novel or game? Consider taking one of the story elements (characters, setting, plot) and making it your own.

Did you know that this is a legitimate genre of writing, and that some students your age subscribe to fan fiction websites where they contribute their own work and have thousands of followers?

Check out the FanFiction below for inspiration...

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Some short stories stay with us. This is one of them. "Thank You, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes is a wonderful example of how an author can take one small moment and expand it into a memorable story. As you read and re-read it, think about what makes this story special. Read it as a reader. Then read it as a writer. What does Hughes do to engage the reader? What narrative tools does he employ?

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You will want to give your story a title. It's important to know the rules for creating that title...

1. Always capitalize the first word and the last word in a title.
2. Capitalize all the important words in the title.
3. Do not capitalize conjunctions, articles or prepositions.

Hint: Check out the titles of some of the anchor texts for guidance.

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Another smart way to organize your story, is to think about the thematic message that you want to make. Doing a little work up front, will help you tailor your craft moves to fit with the theme. Use this guide to think about your story's theme.

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Have you ever read an ending that completely ruined the story? It was just that bad. To avoid writing this kind of ending, you must do some careful thinking and writing. The following tool will help you do just that.

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When all else fails, check out one of the many websites that generate writing prompts for fiction writers. It's a good idea to take a couple prompts and free write from those to see which one you would most enjoy extending into a short story.

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Need an idea to help you get started writing? You'll find hundreds of fun writing prompts here - perfect for beginning a new novel or short story, or simply giving your writing muscle a workout.

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This website promotes and celebrates diverse authors and stories. They have published three anthologies (collections of short stories) by some of today's most acclaimed middle grade and YA authors. Your library probably has at least one of these titles, and if they don't, then you should plead with your librarian to purchase them! On a side note, the website has a short story contest for young authors.

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From We Need Diverse Books, the organization behind Flying Lessons & Other Stories, comes another middle-grade short story collection-this one focused on exploring acts of bravery-featuring some of the best own-voices children's authors, including R. J. Palacio (Wonder), Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer), Linda Sue Park (A Long Walk to Water), and many more.
Not all heroes wear capes. Some heroes teach martial arts. Others talk to ghosts. A few are inventors or soccer players. They're also sisters, neighbors, and friends. Because heroes come in many shapes and sizes. But they all have one thing in common: they make the world a better place.

Published in partnership with We Need Diverse Books, this vibrant anthology features thirteen acclaimed authors whose powerful and diverse voices show how small acts of kindness can save the day. So pay attention, because a hero could be right beside you. Or maybe the hero is you.
AUTHORS INCLUDE: William Alexander, Joseph Bruchac, Lamar Giles, Mike Jung, Hena Khan, Juana Medina, Ellen Oh, R. J. Palacio, Linda Sue Park and Anna Dobbin, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ronald L. Smith, Rita Williams-Garcia, and short-story contest winner Suma Subramaniam On sale July 30, 2019 || Published by Random House
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound | Books-A-Million | Hudson Booksellers | Audiobook

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From We Need Diverse Books, the organization behind Flying Lessons & Other Stories, comes another middle-grade short story collection-this one focused on exploring acts of bravery-featuring some of the best own-voices children's authors, including R. J. Palacio (Wonder), Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer), Linda Sue Park (A Long Walk to Water), and many more.

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Oftentimes a teacher will hang onto exemplary student work. Ask your teacher if he or she has an example of what a great narrative looks like.