Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020

Stories (113)

113 Stories

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“Butter & Cream” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

I have fed the cat butter and cream before he dies. Dairy is terrible for a cat’s gastrointestinal tract, but then again, so is abnormal dilation of the colon. I’ll take the blame for the dairy. God can take the blame for the rest.For the hundredth time in a week, the cat valiantly tries to poop in his box and cannot. This puzzles him as he hasn’t been sick one day in his whole 15 years of life. What happens when things that have always worked suddenly don’t?...

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“L'odeur of Summer 1794” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“Find us a good place to sit, Suzanne. In front of the scaffold, but not too close.” “Absolument. I know just the spot.”“I will be back shortly.”“Where are you going, Jacqueline?”“To buy a nosegay.”“Who's selling flowers on such a day?”“There's a stall near the tumbrels—next to the prisoner carts. The lilacs have bloomed.”“Lilacs!”“Oui, lilacs. Why not lilacs? They’ll match my dress.”“Mon Dieu! Are you sprucing up for the gendarme

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“The Smoke of Her Burning” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Part I: It was so terribly cold.It had always been cold in Denmark, especially on New Year’s Eve.The wintry winds brought a desperate chill to those unsettled and impoverished. Wars continued to ravage the land. Treaties were torn up as soon as they were signed. Industrialization poisoned Scandinavian cities and its people. The young moved west for better opportunities in warmer climes, leaving the rich, the poor, and the poor’s children on the streets of Copenhagen. The rich fared n...

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“Sol's Sunshine” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“You cannot hit Jeremiah Brown in the face.”“But Pop Pop, JB is the worst boy in the entire 2nd grade!”“Sunshine, I don’t care if he’s the worst boy in the entire state of Tennessee. You are not the kind of girl who uses her fists to talk for her. I’ve taught you better than that.”“What am I supposed to do when JB tells everyone at recess that I smell like dog pee?”“You do not smell like dog pee.”“Missus Thatcher thinks so, too. She said I should soak my clothes in baking soda and warm water for an hour....

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“The Temperate Wyvern” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“En garde, Devil's Spawn!”“I beg your pardon?”“Hellbeast! Talketh not to me. I come in the name of mine own sov'reign king."“Why?”“To bring glory to his name.” “Bring glory to some old goat’s name? That’s quite the undertaking.”“Silence! I shall not listen to another word slithering from your forkéd tongue!” “Then we won’t have much to discuss, will we?”“I claimeth this mountaintop in the name of the Lord of the Realm!”“You are far too winded to claim anything. ...

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“Love in the Time of Apocalypse ” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Willy was in a pickle.As the electrical grid sputtered, Willy desperately tapped his computer to see if his blind date had received his spasmodic messages. Jay, the hopeless romantic at Willy’s work, had set Willy and Barbara Jean up before the remaining Arctic ice caps had melted. With rationing and queuing for breadlines and blaring air raid sirens causing pandemonium, it had been hard to find a suitable date and time to meet.Things had been chaotic at Willy’s work since the long-range missile attack and Atlant...

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“The Less Things Change” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Today’s the day you change. You mean it this time.Everything. You’re going to change every jot and tittle.You are unsure what a jot and tittle is—an expression your overly religious grandmother uses—but it seems like a good phrase to use today.You pull out your iPhone and google “jot and tittle” → [The very smallest detail(s) or amount(s)]. It’s a sign.You make a mental list of where to start, but it’s entirely overwhelming, so you simply decide to get out of bed. <...

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“Unfinished Business” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Five days after Yom Kippur, David Jacob Tomaschewitz prayed for better challah sales to ensure his foundering bakery made a profit for the year.Although business had been brisk for Rosh Hashanah, sales of Shabbat bread had consistently diminished, week by week, as other Jewish bakeries offered more than his meager shop—cookies! pastries! cakes!David’s father had founded the bakery decades prior, specializing in traditional Jewish loaves of bread, including mountains of bagels his loyal customers bought by the brown-...

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“The Bibliophagist's Magic Shop” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Ever since the new Wal-Mart opened by the interstate, there wasn’t much for us to do except throw rocks at the old sock factory. Someone tried to get an Anklebiter football team going, but no adult we knew had the time or inclination to volunteer—since working the night shift at Gas-N-Go takes a toll on a body. “Maybe your stepdad could coach?” I asked Marcus.“Nah. All he does is smoke and fuss at the dogs. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be around much longer.” Marcus had been my best friend since I could reme...

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“Ipsa Historia Repetit” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Sampson,” the principal said, smiling thinly. She motioned for the anxious mother to sit in the chair across from her desk. The bookcases behind Mrs. Sampson’s seat were filled to capacity, mostly with well-annotated history books that the principal kept from her years of teaching. Holding her designer handbag in front of her like a shield, Mrs. Sampson’s lacquered nails made indents on the leather. She sat on the chair’s edge, legs crossed, settled in. “I don’...

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“The Physics Professor and the Latte” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

It wasn’t like Dr. Stevens to spend $4.38 for coffee. Not coffee—a latte. A latte was essentially fancy coffee with a thin layer of foamed milk. Either way, $4.38 was an egregious amount of money to spend on a beverage for a young professor with crushing student loans—a young professor who wasn’t sure about his lackadaisical students understanding the beauty of physics—a young professor who would have been just as happy sipping the dregs from the burnt coffee pot in the faculty lounge. He wasn’...

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“The Dewey Decimal System ” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

It’s a rare thing to find fulfillment in maintaining order, carving it out of chaos, keeping the Barbarians outside the gates. But it’s been my life’s pursuit. Case in point, I return from my lunch break to find all hell has broken loose in the library. How much anarchy has been unleashed in the quarter-hour it takes me to eat my egg salad sandwich is staggering, but it’s all part of my Sisyphean struggle to thwart the laws of entropy. I escort two homeless women in need of a shower to the community bathrooms...

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“Honestly” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

“O Woman That I Used To Love, what should we get for dinner tonight?’’“Honestly, my Greatest Disappointment? I don’t care.”“You do care. You want me to suggest a place to eat so you can shoot it down. Whatever I say, you will wrinkle your little nose like I decided that we should eat out of the cat’s litter box.”“You could not be more wrong, but you usually are.” “Perhaps you could stop on the way home and pick up some takeout.”“I could, but I won’t. Our nightly conversation about dinner is the only...

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“Kaleidoscope” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

You never asked for this much insight.But you can’t have both innocence and experience. Experience. A charming euphemism for pain and suffering. Either one will drive out innocence altogether. Isn’t that what you’re really after—a return to Eden? Minus the snake. Minus the apple. Minus Adam, for that matter. However, if you had stayed in an unspoiled world, you would have learned nothing. You would have felt nothing. You would have seen nothing. Better to have loved and lost—etcetera etc...

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“Far Away and Fast ” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

There were too many of us, Lizzy thought, tucking herself behind a door jamb.Her father smoked in stony silence in front of a television, while her mother swatted her brothers who snatched fingerfuls of mashed potatoes from a large bowl on the dining room table. In various sizes, her brothers pushed and yelled, whining about being hungry, complaining about being late for football or wrestling practice, asking if there were any more chocolate doughnuts from the bakery.As usual, her mother was cross, but s...

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Author bio

Copyright © 2023 Deidra Whitt Lovegren - All Rights Reserved. Using content without written permission is prohibited. Were you waiting for the sequel? "The Medicine Woman" will be published Summer 2023. Contact me here: lovegren.deidra@gmail.com Check out the website: deidrawhittlovegren.com Listen to a podcast about your favorite Reedsy Writer: Readlotswritelots.com Read us one of your stories: Bluemarblestorytellers.com Chat about the joys & frustrations of writing with your fellow writers: https://discord.gg/bxTWQw3HJR Winning stories: 🏆#142 - "What You Can Do With Your Book" 🏆#67 - "Your Poor Rick" 🏆#53 - "The Play's the Thing" Shortlisted: 🏅#189"-“The Smoke of Her Burning” 🏅#172"-“Honestly” 🏅#171"-“Kaleidoscope” 🏅#168- "Far Away and Fast” 🏅#158- "Like a Baseball Bat to the Face" 🏅#144 - "Shuttered Hearts" 🏅#138 - "Homewrecker" 🏅#136 - "Hack" 🏅#124 - "The 10th Circle of Hell" 🏅#121 - "No Thank Hugh" 🏅#77 - "As Ice Glazes Rocks" 🏅#65 - "Marshmallow Wrapped In Barbed Wire" 🏅#52 - "Irrumator Praetor Matrem Suam" 🏅#47 - "A Breakup in Five Acts" My personal favorites are: ❤️ “No One Really Explains” ❤️ “Can't Get Enough of What You Don't Need”

Winning 2 stories 🏆

Contest #142

What You Can Do With Your Book – read story

Contest #67

Your Poor Rick – read story

Shortlisted 15 stories ⭐️

Contest #198

Butter & Cream – read story

Contest #189

The Smoke of Her Burning – read story

Contest #172

Honestly – read story

Contest #171

Kaleidoscope – read story

Contest #168

Far Away and Fast – read story