Karen McDermott

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (76)

76 Stories

2270 karma pts

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“The Veiled Tavern” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #275

Evan stood in the dark kitchen, watching the pub-goers file out, waiting for the landlord to dim the rest of the lights and lock up. He gave it five minutes before emerging from his aromatic (he judged burgers and chips had been on special that day) hiding place. Jeremy, the aforementioned landlord, was always paranoid that he had forgotten something, and was usually right. A side effect from sampling the produce during the day and indeed dabbling throughout the evening. Evan moved to the window and saw Jeremy driving away. He made sure Jer...

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“Berth Place” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #265

Milo winced as his punt crunched into its spot. He thanked his passengers – shouting it sarcastically after the teen who hadn’t followed his instructions and hopped out before Milo had had a chance to secure the boat. More quietly to the ones that disembarked with dignity. One woman in a yellow sundress (who appeared perfectly in control of her balance, even in kitten heels) rested her cool pale fingers in Milo’s palm a touch longer than was strictly necessary, purring her gratitude with an excessive amount of eye contact. There was always o...

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“Rate Your Stay” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #262

1st July 2024 Vanessa: Hi! I’m looking forward to staying in your gorgeous, quiet cottage. I’ve booked it as a writer friend suggested a change of scene for me while I finish the first draft of my debut novel. I’m not purposefully being boastful by the way – the site was just recommending I introduce myself and give a reason for my stay :) Best wishes, Vanessa. P.S. If I get published, you’ll definitely get a mention in the acknowledgements! StarHost: Thank you for booking your stay at Acorn Cottage. Check in is with a lockbox. The code a...

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“Last Orders” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #253

Char paid the taxi driver and turned towards the pub. The sign, marked ‘LINES END’ on a painting of the facing cliffs of Arrowick Cliffs, creaked in the cool breeze of the night air. She listened as the car crawled over gravel, sped up. She watched as it disappeared into the evening. The last journey. The pub door then slammed open, a mixed and messed up group in their twenties crashing out, comparing who was drunkest, where they ought to move onto next. The glow from the crackling fire of LINES END pulled Char in. She stopped pondering w...

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“Art for Beginners” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #247

Room 19, level three. It would have been a lot easier for Jessica to find if the architect of the campus hadn’t seemingly been channelling M. C. Escher tripping on mind-warping hallucinogens. Or if the interior designers had been more direct with their signage, instead of littering the place with vague arrows. Was that one pointing to the stairwell, or around to the left? She’d finally given up when she’d found herself in the dusty basement, where a sour-faced janitor snapped out a route for her. “At least I’ve achieved my aim of speaking t...

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“Turning Tables” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #239

“Thank you for your help today, Mick”, said Rachael, handing the shopkeeper a £50 note, “and keep the change.” She beamed back at the winking man, who was already stuffing the money into the pocket of his overalls. Mick’s Furniture and Fixtures only ever took cash. How much of that was about appearing as reliably old-fashioned as the goods that the family business sold, and how much was it about a lack of paper trail, Rachael had wondered but never asked. She had found the perfect bedside table for the guest bedroom she had been renovating (...

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“Buy A Parrot Next Time” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #232

“You’ll never see it if you keep giving Keith all your attention.” I prodded at the koala plush my brother’s tiny fingers were fumbling with. T was going through an antipodean phase. Which was strange enough for a six-year-old whose peers wore screens as extensions of their noses, but stranger yet to name it ‘Keith’. I was hoping, praying, that tonight’s celestial event would out-strange both T and his toy. “Why are we here again?” T whined, cheerily thumbing Keith in his glassy black eyes. “For Lonergan’s Comet. For the hundredth t...

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“The Most Embarrassing Thing Story” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #220

I was helping out Grandma in the kitchen. It had become our bimonthly ritual since parents had moved into The New House. Mum had wanted to move to a place that had a bigger garden and fewer neighbours. Dad and I had been completely comfortable at The New House once all our stuff was unpackaged. Mum, however, was adamant the place was a fixer upper. So while they spent every other Saturday in the shops comparing swatches of carpet and pouring over tins of paint called things like Iced Latte and Glazed Apricot, Grandma and I would bake. Gra...

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“The Midnight Wanderer” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #211

It was a cool July evening when Erinaceus europaeus finally accepted my offering. That’s their scientific name. The hedgehog. I learned it just in case he responded to it, but I still had to look it up again to remember how to spell it. I’m doing more of that since Horatio died. Not just with scientific words that you wouldn’t expect an 85-year-old retired seamstress to know anyway; but with simpler words like ‘fruitcake’, ‘newspaper’, ‘remorse’, and ‘lodger’. The difficulty with that last one struck when I was trying to place an ad for ...

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“Giving Back” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #210

“Whoo! Look at this, Eileen – I’m Marilyn Monroe!”Eileen peered over the top of her glasses and put down the receipt she had been puzzling over. Janice, her eccentric boss at the Rewild Life Charity shop was holding the straps of a dazzling white ball gown up to her shoulders, doing twirls in the back room that barely had space for the staff lockers, let alone such activity.It was January 8th and they’d been inundated, as usual for the time of year, with unwanted Christmas presents. Piles of DVDs still in their cellophane wrappers. Perfumes ...

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“Salt and Pepper” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #203

Benjamin Pendergast-Manifold had been waiting seemingly forever for an opportunity like this to drop into his lap. Or more accurately, his hands. Just typical, wasn’t it. He kept his LinkedIn profile pristine and up-to-date, only to be rewarded only with thousands of nonsense emails a week. He attended recruitment fairs where reps seemed thrown if you dared ask them about anything about their companies other than to ask for one of keyrings they were handing out. He attended parties in the hopes of networking, when he’d rather be lying on t...

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“Always Check The Pockets” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #197

Nobody liked her and everyone cheered when she died. Or would have done if she had ever taken the time to get to know anyone. I only knew her by way of being related to her. I am Mary Veronica Findlay’s granddaughter and it has fallen on me to do her house clearance. It’s not like people haven’t tried over the years. I wrote her a letter when I was 18, saying my mother wouldn’t disclose why she fell out with her, but I bore her no ill will and would she like me to come and visit. “I’m too old to be entertaining young guests” was her reply...

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“Making Tracks” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #189

The trees are so densely packed in this pocket of the woods I’ve found myself in, you’d think there’d been an astronomical event. I stand in the unseasonable cool, clutching the box containing what was left of Marty and wondering whether to go forwards or backwards. I lost signal about three quarters of an hour ago. At least I still knew the time, even if it was little comfort how late it was getting. A group of pigeons erupted in flight, causing me to nearly drop my precious cargo. Not that anything would’ve escaped. Marty had been very ...

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“Rectangled” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #188

I met Vernon at University. He taught Astrophysics. I was one of three female students taking his class. I’d love to say it was because I was determined to help up the numbers of women in STEM, but truth is I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and hoped if I learned the laws of the universe they might guide me as to my place in it. I still don’t know what to do with myself, but I can explain synchrotron radiation and gravitational lensing and you’ll want me on your pub quiz team. I can also entertain your child for an hour using ...

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“Birds that Lay Eggs in Another Bird’s Nest” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #186

“Okay, alright, settle down everyone. Good afternoon students! Today’s lecture is on form versus content, which should come as no surprise if anyone referred to the timetables I sent out at the start of term. Some of you, the ones taking this seriously and hoping to turn their English Literature module into some sort of career, may even have worked their way through the additional reading list. Others may have spent three months in Bali hoping non-stop drugging and partying will transfer into ‘sociable’ and ‘thinks outside the box’ on their ...

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Author bio

Reedsy judge reporting all stories that are AI content generated. Raised by diplomats, currently living in Hove, England, Karen is a former copywriter now turning her hand to creative writing. Published in Viva Brighton, Borderline Stories, Sensorially Challenged and shortlisted on Reedsy. Currently working on her second novel (the first was just for practice, and to see if she could). She is aware of the meme. Stalk what she's been reading: https://www.instagram.com/midgebird/ Caution: my stories may contain swear words and scenes of an upsetting nature. But also jokes.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #78

Betty – read story