reedsymarketplace
Hire professionals for your project
reedsyblog
Advice, insights and news
reedsylearning
Online publishing courses
reedsylive
Free publishing webinars
reedsydiscovery
Launch your book in style
Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2023
Submitted to Contest #281
When Leika was a girl, her mother used to call Leika her "Baby Barnacle". Everywhere her mother went, there was Leika, attached like a fifth appendage, a bouncing shadow in her mother's wake.Before Leika was old enough to enter school, she and her mother would go out to the yard, with Leika draped around her mother's back, like a tiny turtle shell, and they would while away warm, summer days chasing Monarchs, as the insects migrated south across Western Massachusetts.The "Moppy Game" was also a favorite, as she would sometimes recall, a past...
Submitted to Contest #273
I could hear the hounds' infernal yapping somewhere in the night behind us. Making decent time in these woods under these wet conditions had been harder than I’d planned. Most of the day before had been spent trudging through mud that came up to a pig’s eye. An unforeseen hitch delivered to us by that morning’s rain. Still the day’s head start was god-sent. Hattie was less positive than I. At sunset, when the hounds first sounded their cries, she cursed my name. Cursed it, and called for God to strike me down, '...
Submitted to Contest #247
The smell of rotten eggs woke Harper from a dead sleep. Or maybe it was the waves of intense nausea. Her innards felt like they were being stomped clean, like dirty laundry in a remote, rural stream. Through eyes weary and half-shut, Harper watched a red light pulse. It filled the space around her with spasmodic, blood-hued flashes.Uggghh… Moving wasn’t high on her list of priorities. Her head was heavy. It felt like a pumpkin propped on a toothpick, and inside sloshed thoughts and images that threatened to fuse toge...
Submitted to Contest #239
Maddy scrolled through the Life Choice Review templates on her tablet. She nodded her head and peered over at at the old man as she did.Jerry O’Neil was his name. He looked relaxed, sitting back in his navy cardigan over a white polo. His khakis were pressed, his loafers buffed.‘A classic look’, she thought.The man’s eyes were a piercing blue and were alert despite his age. What looked to be blonde locks had long given way to grays and an inevitable, yet forgiving, receding hairline.Jerry cleared his throat and peered around the room. B-13, ...
Submitted to Contest #219
“Surely, riding a cat is certain death,” Dante thought. The little guy's mind was whirling after the unnerving conversation he'd had with his father. “These zealots,” he said to himself, “going wherever the pack tells them without a thought as to why, or what consequences might await."The sky over the abandoned farm was churning with cold, gray clouds. Withered, brown leaves fluttered across his four feet as Dante skittered across the old homestead. He was never one to walk in the old and dried footprints of others simply beca...
Submitted to Contest #217
Guilt cascades through Detective Nguyen like hot embers down a meat chute as the tequila trickles down his throat. The sizzle of the booze is familiar. It's laced with equal parts relief and shame. He taps on the bottle. Several taupe-colored, worms squirm and wiggle inside. The detective, a stout man of Vietnamese and Irish descent, shakes his head and sighs.This is gonna kill me. He returns the bottle to the inside pocket of his over coat and wipes his mouth dry. The man drops a handful of Tic Tacs in his mouth and emerges from the stall. ...
Submitted to Contest #216
EROSI awake. I look at Eveline. She’s still by my side. The woman looks like an angel who fell from the sky, too beautiful for the heavens, and wholly out of place here on earth. She somehow alighted on my life here in this burning desert and lit a spark in my sleepy soul.As I take in every soft feature of her exquisite coffee-colored face, I play with the idea in my mind, again, that that may not be her real name. It could be Allanah or Maya. Many people come here and take on whole new personas, whole new lives...
Submitted to Contest #215
Ebonvale sat like a shimmering pearl on the edge of the churning Sirgus Sea. It was the booming hub of trade and commerce for the Central Kingdoms. It overflowed with riches. Its Swift Crest Pillars, which welcomed wary seafarers, were cast from pure gold, and towered like twin flames over the great Mist Harbor, such was the wealth of this land. But its opulence and ostensible good fortune belied a dark secret, one that was spoken of in hushed tones, and lurked deep in its forests.August Miles looked out on Ebonvale's shores from the deck of...
Submitted to Contest #214
I don't even know how to tell this story. ‘Cause when I’m done, you probably won't believe me. For a time, I couldn’t believe it myself. And I lived it. Looking back, I guess there were clues, hints about what was really going on, but, I don’t know, it’s hard to say. You really live in your own world when you’re a kid. I guess I’ll start with that summer. The summer of my 16th birthday. I had just broken up with Julia (not my first love, but I was pretty crazy about her), so I was really looking ...
Oops, you need an account for that!
Log in with your social account:
Or enter your email: