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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2022
Shortlisted for Contest #153 ⭐️
Fiametta clenched the linen sheet draped around the painting. Where in God’s name was he, she thought – or rather, His Excellency? Out of the corner of her eye, Fiametta could just spot her manager, Signore Giulio, glancing at his pocket watch. Fifteen minutes after noon had come and gone. Though His Excellency had demanded that Fiametta complete the portrait in a bare two weeks, it seemed that Bishop Antonio Cipriani took a more leisurely view of his own time. Fiametta sighed as her brown eyes wandered to the quadro riportato artwork over...
Submitted to Contest #144
Note: story contains brief use of coarse language Erica jolted at the bright flash in the cabin’s bedroom – was it lightning? She blinked around the dim, moonlit space, expecting a crash of thunder. Nothing; only the twittering of mountain bluebirds greeted her. She stole a quick glance at Barry, still slumbering beside her. Another quick glance went to her phone’s weather app: the skies over Three Bear Holler were utterly clear, no ominous red-and-yellow patches in sight. Erica sighed to herself, and shook her frowsy chestnut hair out o...
Submitted to Contest #141
Gisella di Vallepietra sat, as gracefully as she could, on the embroidered padding of the stool before her instrument. She brushed off her silky skirts, and threw (yet another) anxious glance around the two dozen guests now ambling to their seats in her father’s gilded sitting room. Signore di Vallepietra rarely threw such ornate dinner parties – he could barely afford their ornate Venetian villa as it was – but Gisella had spent months begging her father to host a fine affair which might showcase her hard-won musical gifts. He had finally a...
Submitted to Contest #137
Milos wasn’t a particularly smart boy; everyone in Samundzhievo (his mother included) admitted as much. He knew that he had been born in the Year of Our Lord, Sixteen-Hundred and Forty-Two. The priests had told him that; they would know, after all, since they could read and write. According to his mother, that meant he was ten years old – practically a man – and that he had better start behaving like one. But whatever Milos lacked in brilliance, he made up for with a strong sense of danger. He discerned the latter when his mother pressed h...
Submitted to Contest #135
Content Warning: references to domestic violence Rhonda Pruitt was stupefied as she sat down on her kitchen barstool and slammed her elbow onto the laminate countertop. The letter trembled like a dried leaf in her hand, but her watery eyes fixated on the return address label: Thomas L. Campbell Partner, Campbell and Custis Associates The law firm’s New York City address followed. Rhonda tried in vain to imagine Tommy, now a grown man, wearing a crisp suit behind a fine desk on the hundredth floor of a building far more impressive...
Submitted to Contest #132
Content Warning: religious trauma Melanie cringed as Cassie’s shrill voice rippled through the wood-paneled living room. “All right, ladies!” Cassie called out to the little clucking group of ladies before her, her back bent precariously over the silver DVD player that her husband had just bought for her. She had to have it for the Ladies’ Wednesday Night Bible Study; naturally, since it was for church, he obliged. But as Melanie sat cross-legged on the beige carpet, peering down at her own trembling hands, she wished she could fling t...
Submitted to Contest #130
Jesse never heard the knock at the door, the gentle clink of the ceramic pot on his doorstep, or the Ford pickup truck rolling off into the distance. For all he knew, the potted plant which he could barely spot through the gauzy window curtain had descended from on high, a little blessing from the Almighty himself. In that case, He could have just sent Jesse some rain instead. But Jesse would never look askance at a gift; after all, he built his whole life on “squeezing a nickel until the buffalo squealed”, as Momma used to say. He had be...
Submitted to Contest #128
Author's Note Regarding Sensitive Material: this submission contains discussion on the struggle of infertility. I peer anxiously at the silver spigot of the decanter as I top off Aunt Marge’s glass of sweet tea, wary of a single droplet escaping through that precarious seal on the teal glass. Today has to be perfect, and heaven knows that the last thing a beautiful buffet table needs is three gallons of iced tea dripping all over the burlap tablecloth. Sweet iced tea, of course. This is South Carolina; around here, unsweet tea is only goo...
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