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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#102: To Kill a Mockingbird

This Sunday (July 11th) marks sixty-one years since To Kill A Mockingbird was first published. For over six decades now, Harper Lee’s groundbreaking Great American Novel has been taught in schools, stocked by the dozens in bookstores, and devoured by adults and children alike. And despite its age, many of its themes remain deeply relevant today: the damage done by judgment and discrimination, the loss of innocence as one grows up, and the vital importance of standing up for what’s right — even when everyone else is against you.

To commemorate this classic, this week’s prompts are inspired by its characters, plot devices, and most enduring lessons. Whether To Kill a Mockingbird is a distant English-class memory or your favorite book of all time, these prompts are sure to spark a few story ideas — one of which may even lead to your own literary masterpiece.

This week's prompts

Start your story with a metaphor about human nature.

Fiction – 109 stories

Frame your story as an adult recalling the events of their childhood.

Adults – 244 stories

Write about a character with an unassailable moral compass.

Character – 34 stories

Write a story about someone losing faith in an institution.

Angst – 120 stories

Write about a mysterious figure in one’s neighborhood.

Horror – 205 stories

Stories

“Mourning Time” by Tamara Shaffer

Submitted to Contest #102

The faces stare out at me from the big red scrapbook, faces of people no longer alive but who formed my history and paved my way into the world. I search for features that resemble my own and marvel at how older relatives looked before I ever saw them. Each recognized face summons memories, torn from the passing of time into segments, like a journal with pages missing. With a sense of eerie sadness, I touch my grandmother’s name. Mary Agnes Tierney. 1880-1960. I knew nothing about her life as a little girl or a young bride, although I know...

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“A Gentle Giant” by George Davis

Submitted to Contest #102

In Gratia Amicus Meus—George Davis He lived in our neighborhood, for as long as I can remember. For some reason, he liked me. Often when I was out playing, he would stand behind the chain link fence, standing erect and still. He never was much for conversation. Many times I approached him, talked to him without his not commenting, just staring at me with a slight grin. His long white, stained beard seemed to blow in the wake of his utterances, on the occasions, he spoke to me. Most of the neighbors avoided any...

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“The Butterfly Collector” by Gideon Leek

Submitted to Contest #102

I have never been good at taking in the scenery. Others always had to point things out to me. I never spotted the robin on the branch; I never saw the snake in the grass. For me, turtles that looked like rocks were just rocks or turtles. I never could appreciate a world filled with many things, but only individual things one at a time. I felt no pang of envy when someone would point out a rabbit in a snowdrift. I did not care. I never understood why others cared. I knew there were rabbits that hid in the snow and rare birds that visited fam...

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“Where's my baby?” by Jazminn Bryant

Submitted to Contest #102

It was a regular day like any other day. I wake up, get myself and my son dressed and ready for work and daycare. My son was 11 months old at the time. I was 6 months pregnant with twin boys. I was in so much pain, I barely got myself out of bed. I was a single mom and the only source of income in our household, so I had no choice but to push through whatever pain I was going through. I dropped my son off at daycare. I gave him all the hugs and kisses I could. "Have a good day baby. I love you" I said to him. I left and headed to work. I wor...

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“The Body” by Sally Lotz

Submitted to Contest #102

That summer in 1970, the one I turned eleven, was the summer we found the body. The three of us, my cousins and I, have never talked of it since, as we swore we never would. When we’re together the secret we’d sworn to keep, lay there between us, pulled tight, ready to burst at any moment. I remember it all like yesterday, even though most days I can’t remember where I put my keys. Back then, on my Grandparent’s farm in the middle of nowhere Michigan, we were free to roam. Mostly. The only place off-limits - the Frank’s pond. T...

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“Jagged” by Katelynn McPhee

Submitted to Contest #102

I eat my cereal in a hurry, careful not to spill any milk. I had slept in: my baby brother had kept us up half the night crying and wailing. The news on the TV was no longer new. Jagged the serial killer was still on the loose somewhere in Maryland. Jagged got his name from the way he killed: jagged cuts of a knife along each of the victims' limbs. However, he was a quick killer: there was always evidence that the throat was cut first, quickly. He just liked to give his dead victims more cuts. He was described to have sandy brown hair and bl...

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“Sweet Innocence” by LeQuitta Randolph

Submitted to Contest #102

You know what's funny? Time. Well its more ironic than funny, but I've learned to laugh at it because it slips by you in what seems like the blink of an eye. I smile at my reflection, my reflection shows me that time, has caught up to me. The days have passed since I've been able to run up to my father and have him swoop me up in his arms and twirl me and dance with me as if there were music playing and and audience that cheered with admiration and awe. My smile becomes a laugh at the memory, however my gaze grows sad as the realization of t...

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“ULTIMATE JOY” by Miss Kandulna

Submitted to Contest #102

Regular coffee or tea? the waiter asked, it felt like he used to notice me as I am a regular customer now. I drink coffee and left for my home.Next day I visited my parents for their memorial, I greeted them and spent some quality time with them talking about my life. They always listens to me, tells me the right path to go on. It was a very long day.When I was six, my parents met with an accident. My uncle and aunt said they left for good. I was abandoned by them, they claimed all of our property and left me at the orphanage. Growing up in ...

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“Hero / Villain” by Kayley Dickins

Submitted to Contest #102

There had been one too many this time. One too many absences of apologies, one too many warnings that went ignored, one too many evenings spent at home with a bleak view out of the window and a whiskey in his hand that he wasn’t sure he could even taste anymore. Those who knew him would have been surprised it hadn’t yet reached the One Too Many Stage where he handed in his badge quite dramatically, quit on the spot, and questioned instantly why he hadn’t done that a long time ago. As it was, this was the One Too Many Stage where he just bega...

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“Just Me” by E. B. Bullet

Submitted to Contest #102

As a child, I wasn’t sure what constituted a good kid. I kept to myself in gentle hobbies of coloring and reading, keeping to mild mannered behavior. I was not a bad kid, but calling me a good one seemed too far a stretch, as though it weren’t an earned title. Most adults simply thought me shy, a bit too quiet for a growing boy. I thought them right. It seemed to me that adults had the sense of it all, and I’d gathered in my limited mind that my mother was the smartest lady to walk the planet. A woman from Mexico emigrated to America with a ...

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“The Mysterious Mr. Doak” by David Dicaire

Submitted to Contest #102

The new subdivisions had been assigned different individual colours. There was the blue, green, red, yellow, orange, purple, pink and violet neighbourhoods. It was a very interesting idea. They were dubbed a certain colour because they featured the many shades of that individual tint. For example, the Blue Neighbourhood boasted houses that were cyan, steel, sky, electric, teal, pigeon and azure. The streets were painted blue and all of the buildings that weren’t house dwellings were painted a blue hue. This made organ...

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“The Descent” by Babika Goel

Submitted to Contest #102

Authors musing-Arjun from Mahabharata was a warriorAnd faced a dilemma as a barrierTo do or not to do made him weakerWho else but Krishna stepped in as a preacherStages of life were explained deeperFrom duty-bound to being a renouncer All came in a particular order5000 years since then have passed in leisureFrom seeds to weeds, all are in disorder.I, an eternal seeker, asked why can’t all this be better?Why can’t Krishna and Arjun live among us as trendsetters?I let my thoughts run wilder And penned down their descent like a writer...

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“The Yellow Light from the House on the Corner” by Brittany Weaver

Submitted to Contest #102

I noticed it when I was eleven. My parents were getting a divorce and Mr. McGonnegy said they had been unhappy since I was born. Whenever they fought, Mr. McGonnegy would just look at me and shake his head and say, “They used to be happy, boy. All your fault.” McGonnegy’s cat was just as mean as he was and hissed at me as I ran past his yard. My parents didn’t even stop me; I just bolted out of the dining room and burst out the front door. I ran just to run, to feel my feet punch the hard pavement. It was near midnight, and the street was d...

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“The other side” by Jane May

Submitted to Contest #102

The exact date or time when she moved next door I do not know. I never heard any of the noises that accompany the transportation of huge boxes and furniture. I did not hear the voices of excited neighbors welcoming a new tenant. I should have heard, the walls do not block out sound, especially human. She suddenly appeared one morning, by the door while I was spraying the garbage bags with a disinfectant and startled me. The door had been locked for over a year. I lowered my mask and smiled, said hello in a slightly surprised tone. “I am in ...

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“Curiosity Almost Killed The Cat” by Lily SW

Submitted to Contest #102

Walking in the dark is scary. I don't like how the entity distorts your place. And how the encompassing sounds wash out by my heartbeat. It's disconcerting. To know how small I am in the grand scheme of things. How lost I can be but how natural it can feel too. But there's this feeling of being watched that makes me feel like prey, like a shining fish circled by vultures. I walk faster, feel the ground harden beneath my step, and the wind sharpens. The cutting air is refreshing; it invigorates me to carry on, that it's working. I don't actua...

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$50

Prize money

712

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 16, 2021 EST

Won by Shane Ransom 🏆

Title: Favorites

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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