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Kathleen `Woods

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021

Stories (115)

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438 Followers

397 Following

115 Stories

2521 karma pts

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The Neighbor's House and Gnomid Law

Kathleen `Woods

She looked down the aisle, to see the weird guy from across the street. He was a weedy middle aged single fella that she in all honesty had never said two words to, but in a fashion similar to her own mother found creepy. It wasn’t his fault, in any particular sense. He was just a very odd man, and for whatever reason they ended up frequenting the same stores, farmers markets and parks. At which Tamara had only ever seen him buy gardening supplies, milk and honey. To be fair she wasn’t a clone of her mother, she had other things to concern...

8 likes

There are Zero Yeti’s in this, but at least one lesbian

Kathleen `Woods

It’s always a strange type of interaction, those times when, after years of on and off chafing on terms like identity and faith, that one is forced to be relied upon as the sounding board for their mother’s parental angst. This is apparently a common enough, if rare example. Though that didn’t make it easy for Brenda to listen. “Did I tell you about the little trip she took to that clinic? I had to drive her back before she did something horrible, you know.” she hears her mother say, the same tone as last she’d made the point to call. ...

11 likes

What Nobility Grants

Kathleen `Woods

By technicality it can be said that the sun is always up somewhere on earth, this was a fact understood by every being save the most spiritually infatuated humans. As a Genie, Anacletus had found the subject of human ignorance rather amusing, though this sense of whimsy had long fallen away, long about the time of his hundredth summons. Anacletus doesn’t quite recall how many times since then it was that he’d been bound in such an odd manner that his day did fill the eons with unseen sunlight at his back. Still, that was the curse on the pap...

8 likes

Sheila’s having a bad day, but you can't stop sliced bread.

Kathleen `Woods

Sheila was making reasonable time, by which she thought, I should arrive fashionably late. This was how her mind worked and that was fine, as it often left her wiggle room on her activities, never too early, never too late. Always prepared. This worked well enough for her, even if the strange boundaries she left around her mind were disconcerting to others.That little bit of wiggle room, she thought, was all she’d need in order to make something special for a friend. Didn’t have a lick to do with the party she’d been invited to, th...

9 likes

Culinary Cowardice

Kathleen `Woods

She drops the beans into the soup, and truthfully she isn’t really prepared for such an addition. Cooking is a science, and as much as it can be said to border on madness there are few that bother with a dish that is both good and foolhardy. Lost Recipes, by Marion Cunningham makes that point clear even with her least balanced recipes. Take page 30 for instance, the last page of the chapter on soups, making ideally a full eight cups for the home-cook and their hungry crowd. Oatmeal soup. With a basic preparation of butt...

8 likes

Oh no, it’s another AU-Uber! Whatever will you do?

Kathleen `Woods

Ivan couldn’t help a wandering mind as they waited for the Grim’s Spawn, mostly about more familiar oddities. Like the Mourner’s charity. There was something strange about talking with Poppy, it wasn’t just their history. It seemed that the girl had grown from someone summarily ignorant to the severity of his actions, to one who saw everything and wouldn’t budge on his right to do better. She made him ask so many weird questions of himself, why do you do that? How do you see? And really, he wasn’t sure he’d trust her any mo...

9 likes

Fine Wine Green Men

Kathleen `Woods

Bright lights turn to silver dishes, and he remembers his telescope’s previous use. For a moment he wants to disinfect the eye piece, and for another he is enraptured by his vision. He hoped that this was just what he wanted to see, rather than what was there, that he, like anyone else, was just dreaming before bed about flying moonmen and their little saucers. He wonders if he’d been caught peeping, by looking up at the ‘little net’ with his secondhand telescope. But at the time it didn’t matter, he was young, and curious, and really he...

9 likes

Horror in the Head

Kathleen `Woods

There are many terrible things that can grow in a head, the fever pitch of ideology is only one. Dreams are another, but they have nothing on the self-parasitic flesh of a tumor. Aiga had been preparing to die since before their escape, her sister, her sister had been planning something else. “Are you there, God? It’s me…Your entertainment,” An over slim form spoke to a stolen room, “I’m due to appear any Day now, so you ought to know how I’ll settle the score. Cause, if I’m being honest. I likely won’t be meeting you alone.” A...

10 likes

Taylor is Proposing?

Kathleen `Woods

Sweet steam wafts from a grand old tea pot, as silver as it’s kettle, sat on its tray. An arrangement of biscuits set aside to please, the sweet nonconformist and new recruit that it all waited for. Taylor could feel pride in managing such a feat but it was only the hectic nature of the previous season that informed such revelry. He couldn’t be angry with himself, he was waiting for his most important asset, the one he’d so brilliantly hired. Miss Makayla Silvestro, the bright creature that now managed his public faculties and shared auspici...

7 likes

Her Patchwork Gears

Kathleen `Woods

The common world is cold, and dark as pitch, but he hears the click of crooked gears sweet crooning and he knows he’ll find her. Falah sought to vanish, as only she could beneath the glare of the maker. It had been too long since he knew her caught and was lost in what he’d so gladly be for her. He doesn’t march as she does, wary and naked. He watches sickened by his own want. He’d needed to see her again, and she is there again in front of him. “Where were you, dearest?” He watches her stop upon hearing him, stricken and lovely, the s...

10 likes

Divine Harassment

Kathleen `Woods

Softly she walks through her newly acquired home, a place she knew would remain empty save the most rare invitation. Atarah wasn’t a gregarious person, and this far out from the intentions of even the locals kept the promise of a quiet life in her future. She breathes in the cold of the setting sun, and the world feels as small as her new home. In a breath between moments on a farm far from here, she’d watched the sky, and counted the stars. She tried to see their shapes, their constellations, to read the future as they moved through the i...

10 likes

A Yeti Pickup artist

Kathleen `Woods

It’s a loosely known fact, for whatever reason, that snow when packed in a piste for a ski run can be groomed so smooth that the common skier has a larger than zero chance of simply slipping into another dimension. This chance increases ever so slightly in the event that an experienced hobbyist runs himself into a Pinetree. While it should be understood that these ‘facts’ are rarely of interest to any such person that isn’t also a Teratophile, Cryptozoologist or more general Conspiracy Fantasist. They are also completely irrelevant to ...

11 likes

Let’s Skip ahead to Coffee with Killers

Kathleen `Woods

“Hello, my name's Flo, I’ma be your server this morning. The blue plate specials are fried fish with mac and cheese, or a Hot meatloaf sandwich, both with the option of coleslaw, salad or this morning's soup.” The waitress said with barely a breath, Rayner had been coming here for years and to spite a revolving door of owners it’s kept the same staff and almost the same menu. That was in part why the food remained so consistent, and why he came here with such regularity. Why he’d decided on the location for coffee this time around ...

11 likes

So You've polished the stone, but Where Does The Wishing Well Lead?

Kathleen `Woods

Gillian pilfered the newer tea canister from the corner cabinet with an ease in conflict with her emotional state. She’d made the decision some decades before inheriting her parents home to never again drink tea from a bag, this was not simply pretension on her part, but more so owed to her own anxieties. If she lacked a steady hand, she certainly didn’t need any kind of infusion. So with practiced ease, she set herself a mug, with a heavy scoop of leaves to her infuser ball. It had been a calm morning before, a heavy breakfast of oats b...

10 likes

Into the Wishing Well

Kathleen `Woods

They spoke till the hour against midnight, what will you do? How will you do it? What do we have? Who will do it?It was a round row save the lost and broken spokes of their normal dining room table, made empty and much too small by the young-most and now silent.It would seem like a waste of time, if it were simply a child trapped in a well. The trouble was why she was trapped. All waterways no matter how distorted lead to hell, and they had no better proof than what pulled her in.“Take the rope and harness, we’ll pull you back when you find ...

10 likes

Author bio

So I’ve been contemplating this addition to my bio for a while: I’ve decided that while I’m happy to get Links in my comments to other peoples stories, I also want to get and encourage more analysis for my work. And hopefully encourage myself to do the same.

Here’s an open invite: Please if you’ve posted something no matter how old on here that happens to have similarities in Subject, Character or Style to something of mine, post a link to it in the comment section of the associated work.

Thanks for reading!

Is it weird to say that I've learned my current writing style through instant message? you might see a preference for the fantastical, but this is mostly inexperience on my part.

I believe in going first by subject then by sound, which is why I sometimes edit with an E-reader.
Those who I've bothered in their comment section may be aware of its alternative use.

I like knowing that unrelated people read my work sometimes.
I sometimes get bogged down by my style, and by attempts at subtext.

If this helps you to make the choice to comment, Remember that it's easier to cut a hemline with distance than with a mirror.
By that I mean, you aren't doing anything wrong by telling me what you see, even if it wasn't intended on my part.

Also I don't know whether this counts as pressure or not, but shoving opinions on my older stories is actually a really good idea, and you should do it.