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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025
Submitted to Contest #295
Margaret stood in Daniel's study, dust gathering on the bookshelves she couldn't bring herself to clean. Six weeks since the funeral, and she still couldn't call it "her study" despite her sister's gentle encouragement to "reclaim the space."Her fingers traced the spines of his chemistry textbooks, stopping at the gap where his journal should have been the one the police had never returned. She'd stopped asking about it after the third time the detective had given her that look pity mixed with impatience and suggested grief counseling instea...
Lena pressed her palm against the rain-speckled window of the seaside cafe, watching waves curl and break against the rocky shore. The air smelled of salt and freshly ground coffee, the soft hum of conversation blending with the distant cry of gulls. She tapped her pen against her untouched notebook beside her espresso. The words refused to come.She glanced at her phone, another email from her agent: Lena, your publisher, is asking about the manuscript again. Any progress?Her stomach clenched. Three years since her debut novel had been savag...
Submitted to Contest #294
May 15, 2024Dear Future Me,Do we finally have things figured out? I'm sitting here in my apartment, rain tapping against the window, wondering if I'll ever stop feeling like I'm just pretending to be an adult. I'm questioning everything—my job at the publishing house that once felt like a dream, my relationship with Daniel that's growing increasingly distant, all of it.If you could respond, what would you say? What decisions would you unmake if given the chance? The apartment feels emptier since Mom's visit last weekend. She kept asking abou...
I told myself I wouldn't say goodbye this time.The letter arrived on a cold, unremarkable Tuesday morning, its edges yellowed with age, the handwriting unfamiliar yet somehow known. "Your presence is requested at 214 Ashgrove Lane. Unfinished business awaits," it read. Evelyn stared at the words, her pulse quickening as forgotten memories stirred beneath years of careful burial.She set the letter down on her kitchen counter, hands trembling slightly. Seven years had passed since she last thought of that house. Seven years spent methodically ...
Submitted to Contest #293
Lena sat on the train, the rhythmic clatter of the wheels lulling her into a trance. The blurred landscape outside mirrored her restless mind, formless shapes rushing past, never still enough to grasp. She traced the faint outline of her reflection in the window, noting the shadows beneath her eyes, the tightness around her mouth that hadn't been there five years ago. She'd hoped the motion would bring clarity, but with each passing mile, understanding felt further away.For years, Lena had run from the emptiness that followed her divorce, be...
Evelyn’s breath quickened, the air in the cabin suffocating, as though the world around her had thinned. Her fingers dug into the armrests, feeling the worn fabric with its subtle roughness beneath her fingertips, but the pressure couldn’t anchor her. The hum of the airplane engines sounded distant, like the world had slipped into another dimension. The faint scent of recycled air, tinged with a hint of coffee and sanitizer, filled her nostrils. It should’ve felt routine, but everything felt off, like she’d been here before, caught in this m...
Submitted to Contest #292
Daniel ran his fingers over the cracked surface of the old canvas, the scent of aged oil paint and mildew thick in the air. The antique shop's dim lighting barely reached the corners of the room, casting the painting in uneasy half-shadow. This was nothing new. He had spent years salvaging forgotten art, breathing new life into the discarded.But something about this piece unsettled him."Beautiful, isn't it?" The shop owner materialized beside him, an elderly man with eyes that seemed to catch and hold too much light. "Not many people can see...
Adrian had always felt something missing, a silence lurking beneath the music that defined his life. Each note he played was precise, honed by years of discipline, yet empty, like a symphony missing its final movement. Music was his identity, his refuge, but also his burden.And there was never any red.His world was deliberately colorless, rich mahogany, deep navy, pristine ivory. His father's study stood as a monument to order, a world of muted tones, controlled and calculated. Red had no place in it. Passion had no place in it. Adrian had l...
Submitted to Contest #291
The fragment trembled between Jonas Halloway's fingers, its edges crumbling like dead leaves. In the suffocating quiet of his basement office, grudgingly granted by the university after last term's heated confrontation with the board over his "unorthodox" research methods, the parchment seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. Generations of scholars had searched for this text, and now here it was, ink impossibly wet after centuries.Professor Chen's warning echoed, "Your obsession with these texts is becoming dangerous, Jonas. The board is co...
The journal lay open on Leah's desk, pristine pages gleaming under the lamp's harsh glow. No coffee stains. No grocery lists. No half-formed story ideas. Only emptiness stretched across page after page, as if something had devoured the words she knew should be there.Her hands trembled as she traced the leather binding, remembering how she'd written in it just yesterday–hadn't she? The memory felt soggy, dissolving at the edges like wet paper.She slammed the journal shut and reached for her coffee, fingers brushing empty air. In the kitchen, ...
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