🎉 Our next novel writing master class starts in –! Claim your spot →
Advice, insights and news
Free 10-day publishing courses
Free publishing webinars
Free EPUB & PDF typesetting tool
Launch your book in style
Assemble a team of pros
A weekly short story contest
Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2021
“Is it real?” the woman asked, looking at the shaggy black unicorn sitting outside the rusted gates. “I touched it. It’s a statue, but it’s covered in fur,” the man said. The statue was a weird touch, but then, Auroch Manor was weird despite its appearance as a respectable pre-WWI stately home with a long narrow meandering driveway. The man, Dr. Scott Packer, late thirties, pulled back overgrown...
The sky is gray and rainy in Palm Springs on the street. A mysterious envelope descends. Daniel Wilson, 11, carrying a school backpack, counts off on his fingers as he points to the raindrops. The other children look at him and shrug: "what a weirdo." The letter falls onto the sidewalk. Daniel's schoolmate Maria, 11, cute, picks up the letter and looks at the writing, then holds ...
“Do you know what I like best about eating humans?”The Silkenskin smiled at me, its voice soft and melodious and full of death in some lesser-known underground caverns near the cave of Lascaux.  The place where Silkenskins had landed.I considered the Silkenskin’s remark progress in our encounter. An hour ago, the Silkenskin didn’t even acknowledge me, except to say, “Get out of my bed.” The pile of material like satin sheets I knew to be its shed skin apparently qualified as a bed.I reached out and casually ...
A/N: Trigger warning. This story contains character deaths. When you leave this campfire tonight, don’t take Goat-Man’s Bridge on your way home. Four teenagers found this out the hard way. They were out, bored with all their usual activities, and one of them dared the others to drive to Goat-Man’s Bridge so that the two couples could make out and lure the G...
I listen to the audio in my head. “All is new. All is bright. May you have dreams of newness tonight.” It’s the constant loop from the State NEW Agency. Nation’s Eternal Watch. Is this America anymore? It’s hard to tell. We have had so many different names since the revolution. And each time we reset history. I vaguely remember a few fragments of the old history. There was the Civil War of 1945....
Fictional characters never retire. Ayeba the Huntress, twenty, glared at the unfamiliar blue room in which sweet soothing music played and blossoms filled the air with their scent. She fitted an arrow, carved from hartwood, polished with a nine days’ finish, to her bow.  “Where am I?” This did not look like the rolling meadows of her home planet, Or’yan. Or the metal machine-domes that displaced swaths of t...
Note: Written with input from Taylor Swift superfan Kathryn Berenbaum. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace,” the preacher said. I stood frozen in the back of the church looking at the man of my dreams dressed up in a tuxedo that he probably rented. The girl beside him, in the super-frilly bridal gown, didn’t know that he probably rented the tux because he just would have wanted a nice suit. O...
NOTE: This is a chapter in a longer work. Berna Longtail, puppy-in-waiting and royal tutor to Princess Flora, never ventured into the human world. The moment her paws touched the sidewalk, she stood and sniffed the air. So many different scents! Her nose wiggled all over in confusion and she couldn’t sort out one smell from the other. Too many! The human food with its aromas that went ...
The roadrunner always knew she wanted to fly.Since the first time her talons touched the human sky-road where the metal birds flew, she knew she wanted to fly like the metal birds. Away from the desert heat. Away from the coyotes and the bobcats, and definitely away from the snakes. And the humans.But she couldn’t fly on her own.One of the metal birds sat on the human sky-road. It looked far bigger than any bird ever grew. She wanted to fly inside the bird. Then she could soar above al...
Ms. Loren studies the questionnaire. “Where would you like your meet cute to happen?” “Oh, definitely someplace unusual.” Ms. Loren glances at a menu of options. “Accidental crashing into each other at the coffee shop is our most popular option.” Emmy shakes her head. “Then everyone will be bumping into each other in my favorite coffee shop. Think of the cr...
Fictional characters never retire. Ayeba the Huntress, twenty, glared at the unfamiliar blue room in which sweet soothing music played and blossoms filled the air with their scent. She fitted an arrow, carved from hartwood, polished with a nine days’ finish, to her bow.  “Where am I?” This did not look like the rolling meadows of her home planet, Or’yan. Or the.metal machine-domes that displaced sw...
The sky is gray and rainy.  Rain pelts down, and suddenly, an envelope descends. Daniel Wilson, 11, carrying a school backpack, counts off on his fingers as he points to the raindrops. The letter falls onto the sidewalk. Maria, 11, cute, picks up the letter and looks at the writing, then held out the envelope to Daniel. “Take it.  It's got your name on it,” she calls out. <...
Kristin Johnson has not written a bio yet!
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: