Carla Marquez - Writer on Reedsy Prompts

2 Stories

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The Nineteenth of September

Submitted to Contest #315

Every nineteenth of September, Samuel wakes right before dawn.The slight discomfort in his chest wakes him, the kind that makes him shift, toss, and turn in bed, searching for relief. He sometimes wonders, as he stares at the fading moonlight, if it’s because of the extra medicine Aunt May gives him the evening before. It is always bitter, chalky, and hard to swallow, but she says it’s to help him sleep soundly. He never does.Resting on his bedside table, the bell is always awaiting him. Samuel never remembers placing it there. But it is alw...

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Every Dream is a Theft

Carla Marquez

Submitted to Contest #314

Three months after the funeral, I started dreaming of him. He was there, in the living room, wearing his sunglasses inside, his favorite ones with the blue-green chrome lenses that matched his neon sneakers, and a band tee that was just one size too small, though he would argue it was the perfect size or it shrank in the dryer. “Take me down to the paradise city…” He was singing and dancing like he would when I was a kid: his feet moving to one rhythm while his arms danced to another. My chest ached with something between joy and sorrow. For...

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Author bio

Carla is a Seattle-based writer with a BA in French from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has been writing short stories since her elementary school days. Her writing is deeply influenced by the atmospheric tales of Edgar Allan Poe, the unsettling horror of Shirley Jackson, and the gothic depths of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Her childhood attachment to the eerie mysteries of Goosebumps and Fear Street still finds its way into her works, creeping into her stories, blending with her evolving exploration of memory, selfhood, and the complexities of human emotion.

Currently, Carla is shifting focus toward novel-length works that explore lighter themes, emphasizing romance, adventure, and fantasy. You can read the first draft of her serialized webnovel, Binding Fate, available on Tapas, Wattpad, and Inkitt.