🎉 Our next novel writing master class starts in –! Claim your spot →
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 May, 2021
It's five in the morning, and I've just collapsed after the dizzying helicopter ride to my Grandpa's yacht. My phone starts to vibrate, the sound is making my head feel like imploding. Then a gentle knock on my bedroom door turns to a persistent pounding."Miss Magdalena?"Someone called out my name.It's Mackenzie speaking with his thick Northern accent. He's been with the family since I could remember."It's your Grandad, Lassie. Best pick up the phone, awrite?""No!" I said firmly. "I would not like to get up, and that's final."He won't take n...
Sophia watched the corner of her phone and groaned at the absence of bars. She turned to her cousin, Alejandra who followed her around like a lost puppy. Sophia was the cool cousin from America afterall, and it made for some good practice speaking English. For Sophia however, she dreaded visiting abroad her father's birthplace but, tried to make the best of her time there."Ugh. I'm bored again. Let's play a game?""OK sure. What game?""This one I made-up sitting around in Math class with my friends. We'd get substitute teachers almost every w...
Five years ago, I landed in the old country for the first time to visit my brother. As my chauffeur sped across that jaw dropping green valley, I wondered why the locals paid no mind to their own gorgeous landscape. People were too busy surviving here. He finally dropped me off at the beach where my brother had built his bricked house on top of a hill in an American cape Cod style. From a distant glance, it looked like the same home we grew up in. That beautiful memory was distracted by the foul stench of something rotten in the vicinity.I l...
I'm taking several images using my long-zoom digital camera, perfect for catching Triple Sevens spiraling down towards the Pacific winds. I marvel from the panoramic view of my bosses window and try to guess where ATC will allow the pilots to land. It's one of the two busiest times of the week for flights, Friday afternoon, the second being Monday morning.Across the south runway, there's a twinkle in the window coming from the old abandoned hangar formally known as the Lake Airways hangar.From the outside, it looks like a decaying build...
Me and my chief of staff, Reginald worked tirelessly for these coordinates, they lead us to the Land of Volcanoes, in a city called San Miguel, where the population of mestizos immune from the hazy air and scorching tropical heat called it home. The massive behemoths in the foreground, they watched me suspiciously in the distance the second I arrived.I waited outside of the busy airport unwillingly offering my arms as a hors d'oeuvres to the mosquitoes, while I scoured for the taxi drivers aggressively crowding the incoming travelers to...
Q, sat in the corner office by the window overlooking the gloomy city drenching itself in rain. It looked like it was eating itself from the inside.He took a deep breath and rang over Parvati.Parvati's long thick black hair swayed when she walked. It entered the room before she did. "You wanted to see me, sir?""Yes. Thanks for coming in P. How're the numbers looking?""Oh...The numbers?" Parvati sighed. "Well...are the quarterlies report due already?""Mhm.""Ok so here's the deal.""Whoa. Whoa. Let me cut you off there for a moment, P. I m...
I remember my thoughts about this town when I first arrived, it left breathless and confused. I wondered how an American city could feel so foreign. It was desolate and the sun had been bombarding its residence with brutally long 19-hour days. Aside from how difficult it was to maintain a proper sleep cycle, there was one other thing that brought me comfort in this place, the mountains. They were in the foreground like the local elders watching over us, and protecting us.Meanwhile, the temperamental wispy clouds foreboded something strange.I...
It was Adriana's lunch break and Chelse sat outside of the fast food joint she worked at. Chelse was a pretty girl with light blonde hair that she never cared to brush. She always wore floral design dresses or skirts while Adriana wore more dark mellow colors. Adriana was a more uptight version of her best friend. They always felt like they didn't belong in the decade they lived in, especially Chelse, who was more of a free-spirited hippie deep down."C'mon, you said you wanted adventure. Now's your chance! This is the modern day Woodstock. T...
Their wild laughter was the first thing she heard when her family was killed. So she associated those once cheerful rhythmical contractions as something to be weary of, something to run and hide from. They all made that strange sound when they attacked, it was something left in their motor function from before their minds rotted away to something savage and unhuman.Isabella gazed at her telescope late one night from the roof of the gymnasium when she saw an answer to her problems. There it was, in plain sight in the Pacific Ocean, an uninhab...
CW: ProfanityMs. Wong, the fourth-grade teacher of Kenwood Elementary School clinged onto the news station before class, Tom Gosling and Rachel Reynolds were the charismatic anchors on-air that morning. They began announcing the latest breaking news story almost immediately."YBC News. Good morning listeners, It's 7:00 a.m. in the East. We bring you breaking news at this hour, members of the Republic of Karboya now on a showdown at the American Consulate building in England in a wake of high level diplomacy tensions."That's right Tom. Je...
It was the dawn of the morning in the New Mexico Territory when I held my steady aim at the murdering menace they called "Angry" James Donahue. While the townsfolk use to know him as the genteel rancher with an esteemed moral uprightness, he was soon discovered to be a rotten old fool. Witnesses at the local saloon talked about his short fused temper and how much he'd mistreat the local sportin' women in town.There he was in the front porch of his hideout, ornery, smoking a pipe and airin' out his lungs. After I heard about his crimes, for m...
Round 3"Are you there God? It's me, your boy, Louie. This guys like a chess player out there, man, memorizing every combo I throw at 'em. If I get some strength for the next five seconds, I'll owe you big." "Six!... Seven!... Eight!..." yelled the ref, jabbing his index finger in the air.My heart was throbbin' in my chest as I tried to lift my arms up, they felt as heavy as an eighty pound dumbbell. There was mad blood allover me too, but it wasn't mine. For a dude that bled so much, he sure got the best of me.He swung a clean jab...
CW: Drug Use, ProfanityEthan abruptly woke up with white crust accumulating on the side of his lips, and heavy rings around his eyes from staying up watching SNL reruns all night. His two younger brothers Jacob and Wesley had been kicking his bedroom door repeatedly."Wake your ass up, man!" yelled Jake. He turned the Steppenwolf song on his cassette tape Boombox a little bit louder."Please!" Wesley pleaded, the youngest in the quintet of brothers.Ethan finally unlocked the door and they barged in. "Shit! Shit! I know. I know, I swear I could...
In the few months I spent in the orthopedic room clinging onto my life, I thought about the accident that rearranged the script of my entire existence. A police officer had walked into my recovery room and explained the tragedy that had unfolded. All five of my family members were killed after being struck by a distracted driver.Nurse Alexa was there in the emergency room when I first laid eyes on her. She had long beautiful platinum blonde hair hidden in a bun glacial blue eyes and an irresistible smile. The kind that just draws you in and ...
"What would you like to talk about today, Nadia?""Shhh!" Nadia pressed her index finger against her lips and watched as her therapist, Caroline sat attentive with a notepad and a pencil."You have to listen to this for one second."Nadia held her phone out and waited for the soft flutes to pan out from the beginning of the King Crimson song, "I Talk to the Wind". Right after the first verse began, she lip synced to the chorus. "I'm on the outside looking inside... What do I see?..." She strummed an imaginary electric guitar riff, "...Much...
Hi I'm Eric, I'm fascinated by creating fun and unique stories centered around new exotic locations. And I really love writing in new genres!
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: