reedsymarketplace
Hire professionals for your project
reedsyblog
Advice, insights and news
reedsylearning
Online publishing courses
reedsylive
Free publishing webinars
reedsydiscovery
Launch your book in style
Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021
Do you know what you eat if you’re stranded on Dessert Island? You eat the Sand Witches there. It might come as a surprise that there are Sand Witches on Dessert Island, and they’re edible. It came as a surprise to me too, particularly since only moments before I found myself stranded on Dessert Island, I had been engaged in a very lively discussion with my boss on why it would be inadvisable to disband the HR department. That is, I was getting fired. You’re probably still as dizzy as I was when I found myself hurling through the sky t...
Submitted to Contest #214
The summer I grew up was not a happy one. How could it be otherwise? It’s suffering and pain that transform us, not contentment and pleasure, however alluring and attractive they seem. At some point, the nursery and all its soothing safety and warmth have to be ripped away, and the child has to stare at the cold, hard, unfeeling facts of life with no one to comfort her.For me, in that sweltering summer of my late youth, the cold, hard, unfeeling facts of life consisted of a white funeral hall, a silver and sable coffin, and my mother’s corps...
It began with a conversation with a male sea nymph in a sauna, and it ended with Ms. Wiggle becoming the adopted mother of an octopus. And by ended, I mean began, because in fact, this story is about Ms. Wiggle and her aquatic indiscretion. It also has to do with octogenarians somehow, but that will make more sense (insofar as anything in this story makes sense) later.Ms. Wiggle was an odd person, as you might expect, though not perhaps in the ways you might expect. Her oddness began right at birth, which took place at 11 am on the 11th of N...
A blip appears on the holographic map of my galaxy-hopper. According to the data banks, there isn’t supposed to be anything in this region, just empty space. I blink and scratch my head. Somehow, I feel like I’ve been here before. But that’s not possible. I grew up in the eastern part of the galaxy, with its sprawling civilization, planetary cathedrals, and frenetic pace of life. I’ve never come this far west, where the stars are silent, and there is no life for a hundred thousand miles. That is, except for the blip, which is now furiously...
Submitted to Contest #206
Murasaki Yuki was a sad sort of girl, with a round face, long lashes, and large, melancholy eyes. She was never sure why her parents had chosen to write her given name, Yuki, with the Japanese characters for happiness. Perhaps, they had been filled with happiness at the birth of their first child so late in life, after so many years of trying. Perhaps, they had thought Yuki would be a happy child. Or perhaps they had hoped that their precious baby would bring happiness to her parents in their old age. All of these reasons seemed to...
“I’m an imposter.”That was what Dr. Ivana’s first patient always said. It was the same routine every time. He would knock twice on her door, take off his tweed jacket, and sit down nervously in one of the chairs in front of her desk. He would fiddle with his hands for a minute or so, never making eye contact, and then say what he always said: I’m an imposter. No greeting, no small talk, no exposition on the latest events in his life. Just, I’m an imposter.“That’s been a theme in our conversations. What do you think keeps prompting it?” Dr. I...
Mixed marriages are complicated, especially if one parent is a werewolf and the other is a vampire, as in my case. For one thing, it meant Dad went missing once a month during the full moon. And for another, it meant that our house had bats in the belfry—although sometimes the bats were actually my mother’s vampire friends from college, most of whom had taken up careers in academia, government, and other places with ample opportunity for bloodsucking. There is a saying among the older generation of vampires: “Mixed marriages have mixed res...
Submitted to Contest #204
Evelyn Cavendish--aka, Evil Evelyn, Cadaverous Cavendish, or just Evie--was a likely suspect for a murderer. Everyone had said so ever since she was a little girl. "You'll be the next Mary Ann Cotton," her exasperated mother once told little Evie at a family party when she was six. Mary Ann Cotton was a 19th-century murderer, though this apt historical reference eluded most everyone in the room because, of course, men get nearly all the credit, even when it comes to the nasty business of murder.It was, therefore, highly unusual and unexpecte...
Submitted to Contest #126
I’d like to tell you about someone I met and forgot a few days back. I’m not sure why it feels so important to me. It was as insignificant as tracks I left in the snow last night before the snowstorm. But it does feel important, and so I’ll tell it. According to my shaky recollection, it went something like this. It was just before dusk on New Year’s Eve. I lived alone in a crummy apartment, where I had to bundle up in blankets to stay warm because the heater didn’t work. I was a fresh graduate. I had made several applications to legal fir...
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: