Digital Art: Girl In The Red Hoodie, by Jackie P

Magazine Update: 2018 Logo Design Contest Winner + Runner Up

Hello everyone! Every submission we recieved for our 2018 Logo Design Contest blew us away with the sheer level of artistic creativity! Let's hear a round of applause for all participants! 

The winner is Leah D!

The runner up is Liam D!

Congratulations to our winner and runner-up! Certificates will be sent out by the end of the week!

Photography: Bee, by Liam D

Photography: Backyard, by Savannah T

 

 

 

You can find more of Savannah's photography on her Instagram account @falsemisfortune!

Fiction: The Boy and The Beaver, by Sophia R

Once upon a time, a young boy lived on a farm. Every day, he was supposed to wake up at sunrise, chop wood for the day, feed the livestock, bring water from the well, and wash the floors. But, instead of doing his work, the boy would wake up late, then walk around the farm hoping that one of his younger brothers had done his work for him. His mother had punished him many times for his lazy behavior, but nothing seemed to work. After being punished, for a few days he would do what he was supposed to, but then he would revert to his original behavior.

One day, his mother had enough. Instead of punishing him the usual way (with a few slaps), she sent him out of the house with the words: “If you don’t do your chores, and don’t wash the floors, you will live outside, until you swallow your pride”

The boy begged his mother to reconsider, but she turned away from him. He first tried to sleep in the barn, but because the cows did not trust him, they panicked when he came in and mooed loudly and he couldn’t fall asleep. The boy then wandered into the woods. The further he went, the less certain he was that he could get back to the farm. He became scared and started running. Suddenly, he came to a halt. There was a river in front of him, and across the river was an almost finished beaver dam. A beaver was hard at work, carrying bits of wood, and weaving them into the dam. The dam was a work of art, but the boy did not see the beauty. All he saw was a place he could stay for the night. 

He asked the beaver, “Hey, beaver, can I stay here tonight? My own mother kicked me out of my house, and I don’t know why.” 

The beaver looked the boy up and down. “You can stay here only if you help me finish my dam.” 

Although the boy could have easily helped the beaver, he looked at the beaver mockingly, and replied, “You do your own work. Why would I do your work for you?” 

The beaver stared at the boy and said, “If you don’t do your chores, and don’t build the floors, you will live outside, until you swallow your pride.”

The boy laughed at the beaver and told him, “You sound exactly like my mother. I guess I will sleep outside today.” 

The beaver shrugged, “Well” he said, “Good luck with the storm.” 

“What storm?” The boy asked, with a little shake in his voice. The beaver did not respond as he continued to build his dam. 

“Fine,” the boy said, “I will help you finish your stupid dam, just let me sleep in it.” 

The beaver replied, “First tell me why your mother kicked you out.” 

“I told you, I don’t know!” the boy replied. “Well until you tell me why, you’ll have to stay outside.” 

“Fine, it’s because I didn’t do some chores that she wanted me to do,” the boy said. 

“Chores that your mother wants you to do, or chores that are necessary to keep the household going?” the beaver replied. 

“Well, I’ve never though about it that way! I guess if those chores don’t get done, the household would fall apart.” 

The beaver nodded approvingly. “Now you get it! Now help me finish the dam, and you can stay with me.” 

The boy, feeling ashamed of himself for not doing the work he should have, quickly ran to help the beaver finish the dam. When they finished, the boy looked at it, and finally noticed how beautiful it was. The beaver kindly looked at the boy, and without saying anything, he led the boy into the dam. In the night, it stormed, but in the morning, the boy woke up while it was still dark, made breakfast for the beaver, and snuck out before the beaver woke up. He didn’t want to be thanked for something he knew he should have been doing.

When he walked outside, he noticed his footsteps from the day before. He followed them back and before the sun rose, he did all the chores he needed to do. When his mother woke up, she found all his chores done, she hugged him and said: “Come with me and we will have your favorite breakfast!”

Magazine Update: Logo Design Contest!

Hi there! Lit Space is in need of a new logo. It's important to us to have a logo that represents the people who contribute to our magazine by submitting their amazing art and writing! That's why we've decided that we want YOU design our new logo!

Anyone between the ages of twelve and eighteen can enter our 2018 Logo Design Contest! The only rule for entering this contest is that your design must include the words "Lit Space" in large, clear, and easy to read letters! You can use ANY media of visual art to design and create your idea of what our new logo should be!

Because we value each and every one of your submissions, everyone who participates in the contest will have their work published to the website and will receive a digital certificate of participation!

One winner's work will be chosen to become the official logo of Lit Space Magazine! The winner's design will be used as the profile picture for Lit Space's Gmail and Blogger accounts. The winner will also receive a digital certificate and will be offered a chance to participate in a short, written interview. The completed interview will be published to our website!

Please send us your submission in the form of a JPG or PNG file to lit.space.submissions@gmail.com before October 17th, 2018! Also, if you'd like, you can write a sentence about why you think your design should be Lit Space's new logo, and send it to us along with your artwork!

We're so excited to see what you come up with!

If you have any questions, comment below, and our editors will get back to you soon!

Photography: Rainy Day Feels, by George M

Fiction: The Haunted Bed, by Kaia A

My friends and I were in my room playing when the doorbell rang. Mom opened the door. The man at the door was our friend, Brock Boeser. Brock was a tall, muscular man in his thirties at the door who was bringing us the bed we’d bought at Goodwill.

The mattress looked ancient and looked as hard as a rock. We took the bed from Brock, who looked very sweaty because he’d played a game of ice hockey before he dragged the bed over to our house. My mom thanked Brock for bringing the bed over.

Meanwhile, I lay down in the bed to try it out and see if it was comfortable. I didn’t know that the bed had belonged to an elderly couple living in a mansion on Bainbridge Island. It was said that they had left one of their beds in the mansion they had lived in, and some pirates came one night and filled up the mattress with treasure.   

Then, I helped Mom drag the bed upstairs, and when she was lifting it, I heard something inside the mattress. It sounded like money! Once mom went downstairs, I quickly went over to the bed. I started ripping the mattress apart. If mom found out what I was doing, she would be flabbergasted. After I finished ripping the mattress apart, I saw the most incredible thing! There were diamonds and rubies and so many coins. I thought this was the best thing in the whole world. I heard mom coming up the stairs and I was frightened. I was panicking because I didn’t want her to know what I had done - I’d just ripped apart our new mattress! I quickly hid the remains of the mattress under my old bed (we were going to throw out my old bed tomorrow so that I could use the new one instead. Tonight, I was still going to sleep in my old bed.) thinking she wouldn’t see it. She never sees anything anyway unless I do something stupid in front of her.

Still, I needed a distraction so that she wouldn’t think anything odd was going on. She came into my room and saw I was painting my nails. She was very impressed with me, because she thought I was teaching myself how to paint my nails. She then guessed that I was up to something suspicious. I’ve never been a fan of nail polish, and my mom knows that. I took the remains of mattress out from underneath my old bed, and carefully dissected it more, but there were no more treasures to be found, except a huge skeleton! I screamed when I saw it. I then found a box to put all of my new loot into. Except the skeleton. I didn’t want the skeleton. I only wanted the diamonds, rubies, and coins.

That night, right before I went to sleep, I heard something really strange under my bed. I don’t even know how to describe that sound. It was just - strange. I looked under my bed to see that the mattress that I’d taken apart had fixed itself. It looked as good as new. Well, at least now I won’t get in trouble for ripping apart the mattress, looking for the treasure inside. Mom would never know what I did.

But when Mom was coming to tuck me into bed that same night, I saw that the diamonds were glowing from inside the cardboard box I’d stored them in, and I was scared that mom would find out what I had been doing.

When Mom came in, I saw the surprised look on her face. She asked, “Where is the glow coming from?” When I couldn’t come up with a good answer, because I was hesitant to tell her about the diamonds, she said angrily, “If you don’t figure out where out where that glow is coming from, young lady, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Mom left the room. I knew I had to hide the diamonds somewhere that she wouldn’t see them. I remembered that I had bought a diamond-shaped night night at the dollar store the other day! The nightlight I had bought were still in my backpack from after school when I went to the dollar store, and the backpack was downstairs in the front corridor. After my mom went to sleep, I crept downstairs to my backpack to get the nightlight, and then I quickly brought it upstairs and opened the plastic wrapping that was around it. I put the real diamonds and the rest of the loot in a different box, which looked like a book. All you had to do to see that it was really a box was open the cover of the “book.” Then, I put the diamond-shaped night light in the cardboard box that had previously stored the real loot.

I heard my mom coming up the stairs. She looked like she wasn’t getting much sleep. She asked, “What are you still doing up, dear? It’s past midnight, get to bed!”

I listened to her, but once I was in bed I was not very tired, so I looked underneath my bed to check on the new mattress. It looked perfectly normal, and it had stopped making the strange noises.

However, I was still uneasy. I decided to call the police and ask them to take the bed and skeleton away. I told them about everything that had happened last night. They probably didn’t believe me. I asked if I could still keep the diamonds, but the police said they wanted to examine them and then put them in a museum. They were very suspicious that I had stolen them, so I don’t think they wanted me to keep them.

I wondered if Brock Boeser had known about the diamonds before he'd given us the bed.

Sketch: Just Madison, by Madison M

Photography: Rainbow Sidewalk, by Leah D

Magazine Update: Now Accepting Visual Arts

Hello, Lit Space readers and contributors! We'd like to announce that we're now accepting and publishing not only your writing, but also your visual art! This means that if you're between the ages of 12 and 18, you can now send us your original photography, paintings, drawings, sculptures, as well as any other media of visual art! We're looking forward to seeing your submissions! 

Poetry: Excerpt from "Dragonfly Girl," By Andrew R

Oddity

She was an odd one.

She was different, that’s what

They always told her.

They were her classmates.

Her peers were unafraid to

Be loud with their thoughts.

She was known to be

The quiet one. She never

Spoke out of turn.

But she would spend hours

Dreaming of blue dragonflies

Wishing she had wings.

She dreamed so much that

Often her mind would wander

When they spoke to her.

So they thought she was

Odd. Even crazy. But she

Was just a dreamer.

Wings

Dragonflies had clear,

Blue, purple, or golden wings.

Dragonflies were free.

The girl’s wings were strange.

They existed in her mind

Letting her thoughts fly.

And when they called her

Odd, she did not mind, because

Her thoughts were elsewhere.

Her thoughts took wing in

Clear sapphire skies and above

Deep green lake waters.

Her wings let her dream

That their words did not hurt her.

With wings, she was free.

She escaped from pain

And now she felt none and lived

In delirium.

Strength

Her wings were quite strong

And almost never tired of

Keeping her happy.

So she was happy.

So her wings beat tirelessly

To maintain her joy.

Her wings did not make

Life easy for her but helped

Her fight through hardship

So that one day she

Would not need them anymore.

But for now she did.

She dreamed of being

A dragonfly, for despite their size,

They were strong and brave.

She dreamed and in her

Mind she was a dragonfly

And invincible.

Fiction: Excerpt from "My Unlucky One," by Kira L

I’d received texts and voice messages from Hui a few hours ago. He'd been begging me for help, he had been attacked by a gang. I was running down the hallways of school, I had to help Hui. If only I didn’t spend so much time worrying about silly things, I would’ve seen his texts and calls earlier. Once I got out the school building, my stupid heels clicked and clacked down the concrete sidewalk. My long hair had never whipped behind me so fast, and once I reached the location where Hui had told me the gang had ambushed him, I couldn’t help but want to cry. There was Hui. Yes, I was happy he was safe but... There was someone else there with him. Yan, one of my best friends. Nobody else in the dark alleyway, just them, lip on lip, with the bright light from the street lamps shining down on them. I felt my heart pounding. I could feel my nails digging into my hands, and briefly looking down at them, I saw a drip of blood. Tears slowly developed in my eyes and began to roll down my cheeks. I didn't know what this feeling was. My lips were numb. What was this feeling?! Watching Yan and Hui pull away from their passionate kiss, I quickly turned around the corner. At this moment I realized two things.

One: I was jealous of Yan and Hui.

Two: I Juniper, loved Hui with all of my heart.

Magazine Update: Introduction!

Hey there! Welcome to Lit Space, an online magazine run by teens! Normally, we’ll upload original literary works (under 3000 words), including short stories, poetry, and essays by teens ages 12-18, but for our first, introductory post, our editors, who independently run this website and are responsible for editing and publishing your submissions, are going to introduce themselves!

Hi! I'm D.Z. I’m currently fourteen years old. I love to write short stories and personal essays. I also like to sing (usually when no one is listening), compose music, and play the violin. 

Hello, I’m Helena. I love writing, singing, playing the flute, and horseback riding. I am thirteen years old. 

If you’d like to contact our editors to submit your writing, email us at lit.space.submissions@gmail.com! We look forward to reading your work!