🎉 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 Jan, 2020
We said goodbye in a hospital room, with the ever slowing beeps of the heart monitor. We held hands as we have done for over fifty years, and then he left. Holding my hand and smiling at me one moment, still and lifeless the next. The tears I had held for so long started to spill, slowly dripping to our hands, still wrapped around each other. They are old hands, knobby with arthritis, marred with patches of blue-purple, but they are our hands. Hands that have belonged to each other since we met all those years ago.&...
I sit in one of the overstuffed chairs the Home Away From Home facility supplies. The heavily padded monstrous thing eases the constant pain of sitting as I sink a good three inches upon contact. Living in this home was my decision, I’ve been losing my marbles so to speak, but I still miss the little luxuries of home. Wooden chairs, for example, are uncomfortable in my old age, but I still want the option of sitting on one. Here all we have is padded. I suppose someone must have bumped into something and done enough dam...
Trigger warning: slavery, sexual assault My map hangs above me, a cloud of glittering dots in the sky. The familiar constellations tell me where I must go. Breath coming in ragged gasps I run away from the only home I’ve ever known. Unlike Mother, I wasn’t taken from our native land across the sea. Unlike her, I’ve never tasted the freedom she missed so dearly. All I’ve ever known was this farm and the abuse held therein. But I’ve been told stories of freedom, and now I wil...
My breath puffs out in front of me. I jump from foot to foot, trying to gain blood flow back to my frozen limbs. It’s the last game this year, but it’s also the first time in almost ten years that Traip’s football team has made it to the playoffs. Despite being well aware that we will not be taking home a win, we are overjoyed that we get to play once more against our rivals, Old Orchard Beach. The Rangers, lovingly called the Boats, against the Seagulls, not so lovingly c...
I’m tired, hungry, want to throw up, and have the growing need to use a bathroom. Dragging my heavy suitcase from the cramped taxi to the busy bus station did not help with my irritability either. By the time I got onto the red line that you must board on the green platform, of which two are closed because of construction, I was ready to scream at the next person who waved a newspaper in my face while screaming at me in no less than five different languages.
The five of us stare studiously at the papers in front of us. No one daring to look up for fear of seeing how the others have taken the news. A clock ticks rhythmically in the background as we sit procrastinating before making any decisions. The papers are a blur of organized text, but our primary focus lies ...
My pen hovers above the piece of paper. Practically trembling with my plans for the year to come. This year will be the year that I turn myself around. Sure I said the same last New Year’s Eve, but this year will be different. It truly will! I will go to the gym! Finally, make use of that membership I have ren...
To whom it may concern, When I signed up for this assignment, I was looking forward to spending four years of my life with someone who shared my disdain for obnoxiously loud, self idolizing, undereducated people. I believed (foolheartedl...
When I realized I loved him, I wanted to find the nearest bridge and jump. He, for the past two years, had made my life a living hell. He was a narcissistic genius who was completely oblivious to how his actions affected those around him. But this year he has changed. He’s sweet, considerate, and seems to genuinely care about me. I didn't mean to like him (in fact the very thought sickened me),...
Mary Lombardi has not written a bio yet!
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: