Louise W

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2022

Stories (5)

5 Stories

94 karma pts

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“The Artist” by Louise W

Submitted to Contest #233

Muted candlelight glinted off rows of freshly-rinsed martini, coupe and wineglasses. Blocks of ice slowly melted in the bustling warmth of the candlelit lounge, pooling at the bottom of the wide metal tub behind the bar. Above the hum of conversation, live jazz music thickened the air, courtesy of a pianist hammering away at the 1948 vintage baby grand in the back corner. This late into the evening, patrons had begun to peel off and head home - or wherever their next destination was that night - but plenty of hand-carved mahogany tables we...

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“The Familiar” by Louise W

Submitted to Contest #169

Amid the haze of exhaust-tinged fog and the mechanical hum of traffic, a cat pads across rain-slicked pavement. She ducks into an alley lined with overflowing garbage cans, picking her way around puddles. Although few people are up and about this late – a line cook smoking a cigarette after his shift; a homeless woman slumped against a bus shelter – the cat sticks to the shadows. She darts down Broad Avenue to where it intersects with Charleston Street, then banks left toward the river. Overhead, storefronts and townhouses loom, their window...

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“A Man of Business” by Louise W

Submitted to Contest #162

Selected Excerpts from the Travel Log of Mr. Charles Edward Rutherford December 2, 1826 Johnson announced he would turn back today. This late in the year, he said, there’s no chance we shall find passage across the Teton Range before the snows come. He pleaded with me to join him; told me the chances of a greenhorn like myself surviving a snowstorm in the wilderness are exceedingly slim. But I promised Fisk that I would not return to the Colorado settlement without documenting a route through the Tetons. Competition in the fur trapping b...

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“To the Mountains” by Louise W

Submitted to Contest #160

The Train snakes across the blackened strip of highway. The travelers’ feet kick up dust and ash with each step. Wherever the road is cracked or littered with debris, they climb over or around, stopping to help each other scale heaps of twisted, scorched metal or jagged chunks of asphalt. Their legs ache from the hours they’ve walked since daybreak, and the straps of their packs dig into their shoulders. Ahead of them, they see nothing but the charred skeletons of trees on either side of the road and a sparse cluster of hollowed-out buildi...

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“Breaking” by Louise W

Submitted to Contest #157

Hazel burst through the doorway of her Communications 101 classroom, shivering from the biting mid-autumn wind. She was only five minutes late, but the professor was already deep into a lecture on crisis communications. A few of the other students glanced up at her as she squeezed past them and dropped into in an empty seat, but most seemed as though they hadn’t even noticed the interruption. “You didn’t miss much,” the girl to Hazel’s left whispered. She was slender and long-legged, with warm brown skin and a bundle of curls piled atop he...

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Author bio

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