Kate Zerrenner

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2021

Stories (3)

3 Stories

81 karma pts

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“For All the Tea in Texas” by Kate Zerrenner

Submitted to Contest #128

He placed his long, bony fingers on the edges of the lid. The container looked like an egg with its top and bottom lopped off. It shone like one of those Hercules beetles you find in rotting ash trees. If you caught one, you could turn it this way and that, and it changed colors in the sunlight. The container would probably do that too, with its streaks of gold in the black lacquer.Mr. Sasaki lifted the lid to reveal a green powder the color of the algae that spreads out on the water between the bald cypress trees in the lake. Setting down t...

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“The Selkies' Welcome” by Kate Zerrenner

Submitted to Contest #108

We left our home as the light flashed in the night sky. Green and gold like fingers of a flame against a sky as black as tar, the sea still and frigid as we pushed our boat from the shore. Most folk said the lights were the Bifrost, the bridge between Åsgard and Midgard, but I knew it was more than that; it was women’s work. It was the light reflecting off the shields of the Valkyrie, the women sent by Odin to the battlefields to choose who amongst the slain were worthy of a place in Valhalla. Battles raged everywhere since Harald Finehair c...

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“Night of the Big Wind” by Kate Zerrenner

Submitted to Contest #96

On the Saturday, snow harangued the village, falling in heavy threads like thick woolen stitches. By morning, the snow had stopped, but the slaty clouds hung low, casting a pallor on all those venturing out for mass for the Epiphany. By afternoon, it grew warm, and the rains came, followed by fierce gales the like of which no one had ever seen. People would talk about it for generations, some folk setting their age by it. It would be known forevermore as Oíche na Gaoithe Móire, the Night of the Big Wind.My family left Ireland that weekend, b...

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Author bio

I write historical fiction and science policy nonfiction.