Advice, insights and news
Free 10-day publishing courses
Free publishing webinars
Free EPUB & PDF typesetting tool
Launch your book in style
Assemble a team of pros
A weekly short story contest
Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2021
Araina walked swiftly, mumbling hasty apologies to pedestrians she blundered into, her vision blurred by tears. Cursing, she swiped angrily at mascara-streaked cheeks and bit down on her trembling lip. She would not break down. Three days. She had three days to break away from the life she’d built. Her heart felt like it was going to burst from pain, and she wrapped her arms tight around herself, as though this would stop her body from exploding into ash and smoke from a burning pyre of rotting te...
Sasha listened intently to the wind in the trees. The hush-swish sound pounded against her ears, making her pulse race. She felt like a tightly strung violin, responsive to the slightest disturbance around her. A distant crash of thunder made her jump, and she sternly reminded herself that she'd been preparing for this moment all her life- there was nothing to fear.But deep down, she knew that there was everything to fear. Her family's life hung in the balance. Her pace quickened at the thought.<...
So many nights, I’ve wandered here.Shadows engulf me, brush my skin with dips and dimples they do not possess. As the darkness enfolds me, so too do I embrace it back, welcome its gentle caress, sink into these loving waves. Far from the truths of living day and of harsh light, brash reality recedes, becomes a distant moan, only one among many ditties sung for those who walk invisible under the sun. In this darkness, there’s the glee of pretense. There’s the dance of shadows, the dance with death. ...
This is stupid. A diary. I’m writing this in a diary, because I hope I can tear these pages out, just like I wish I could tear out the memory of today.I wonder how I’ll see myself one day? Will these pages make me smile? Or in reality, will they make me cringe, as I cringe now? Or will I hurt, as I hurt now- a deep, gutting hurt that stifles me, stutters this pen, makes me wish I could scrub this memory clean?Is it always going to be like this?It’s been a while since I’ve written a diary. I’m clearly rusty at...
Emilia jumped up and down, feeling dizzy. The air was electric with anticipation. The crowd rushed and milled about her, and people jostled against each other as they volleyed back and forth in a confused babble of noise. She clutched her mother's skirt in her tiny fist, wide-eyed with excited wonder.Any other day, this melee would be rife with arguments and shrill frustrated voices; people would be screaming themselves hoarse for getting in each other's way, and faces in the crowd would be impatient, rowdy, and irate with fatigue....
Rani stared out across the undulating waves of the ocean. She hated them. She hated their smooth surfaces, their lying betrayal, their hidden secrets- their lurking dangers that were so many insults to the observer who could be easily enticed by their beauty and their gleaming depths, their hypnotic rhythms and dull roar. The salt in the air melted with the tears on her cheeks. Her head pounded with the pai...
The trains clattered and rattled on rails that had weathered too many rains, seen too many winters. Jeya wrapped her shawl more securely around herself, squinting in the early morning light to make out the time on the station clock. Five to six in the morning. The sun was begrudgingly making its way up from the horizon. Soon its rays would spear the sky like a million soldiers streaking onto a battlefield, and the memory of the night would be lost to the bustle and braying of a busy day.But that moment was yet to come, and the day ...
Maya hadn’t shown up today. It wouldn’t be the first time. The teacher, impatient and indignant in the beginning, had now resigned himself to a reluctant acceptance of Maya’s no-shows for the nature walks that formed an integral part of the ‘Citizen scientist: a bird’s-eye view into the whorls of science.’
Divya Narasimhan has not written a bio yet!
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: