Menu

Prompts

Directory Contests Magazine FAQ

Apps

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

Bestseller Podcast Book Cover Art Success Stories

Tools

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2025

Stories (5)

Comments

Library

3 Followers

1 Following

5 Stories

109 karma pts

?

Alien

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Submitted to Contest #311

Red leather shoes with pinprick flowers sprinkled across the toes, that is what I can remember. The memories aren’t real, of course, I was only two years old. Maybe I’ve merely seen old photographs or recalled my big sister’s hand-me-downs. But deep-burgundy Mary Janes are the only thing I remember about my life being knocked five thousand miles off axis. All I have are snippets of stories I’ve heard over the years—tales that don’t quite make sense and never address why they came. There were generic explanations that included the platitude,...

12 likes

Dissolution

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Submitted to Contest #309

The air was heavy and thick, like inhaling mud; lungs stopped expanding after half a breath. A sticky sweat was pasted onto her skin and seeped into her clothes, even her cotton panties could be wrung out. She stood on the threshold and watched the leaves on the trees dance about in the wind, but it wasn’t strong enough to push through the screen covering the aluminum frame of the storm door. Part of her, the nagging voice that wouldn’t give up, wanted to take iced tea to the porch, sit on the weathered steps, and enjoy the moment when the e...

13 likes

Millennial Summer

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Submitted to Contest #308

The summer time blues had set in. Guilt, this was supposed to be a time to relax, reset, and connect. School let out two weeks ago, and there were still two long months to go. She fretted about school constantly. Her oldest had just finished the first grade, and he hated it. Sometimes he would start crying before he had even gotten out of bed. She was proud that her seven-year-old could read almost anything, but questioned at what cost? The academics were intense and started almost immediately in kindergarten. It wasn’t the elementary experi...

3 likes

Both the Sheep & the Wolf

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Submitted to Contest #307

She wasn’t a pretty girl. Her eyes were small and just a few millimeters too far apart. That made the bridge of her nose too wide, and the tip hooked when she smiled. Her teeth were shifted just left of center, with a few overlapping. Her hair was limp and thin and that unappealing color folks used to call dirty dishwater. No, she wasn’t a pretty girl, but she was thin, she made sure of it. And that’s why she believed him when he said she could be a model. He approached her in a pub. He was ten years her senior at 29, while she was just 19. ...

4 likes

Please Do Not Read

Gemma Leigh Rapp

Submitted to Contest #306

November 29, 2024 I haven’t done this since I was a kid. It feels silly somehow. Maybe I’m self-conscious of my thoughts. I took the suggestion, though. What else am I going to do? When I was little, my diary was one of those chintzy little things. A fat block that would now lay easily on my flat hand. The edge dusted with gold, a gilding that would rub off on my fingers in the summer. A flat lock pressed against the pages that my sister would undo with her identical key. Maybe that’s the reason I never wrote the truth in it. Or maybe it’...

19 likes