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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#11: Childhood Meets Adulthood

Hello, writers! My name is Aja Pollock, and I’m a developmental editor and copy editor. If you’ve ever wondered what Neil Gaiman, Bruce Springsteen, Isabel Allende, and Ron Burgundy have in common, the answer is: me!

You can check out my Reedsy profile here.

My theme for this week is "childhood meets adulthood." Childhood often seems to me like a puzzle that could unlock your understanding of yourself — if only you could solve it. Whether it’s truly possible to solve that puzzle is an open question, but whenever we can fit a piece into place, there’s potential for big insights. Hopefully, these prompts will inspire you to explore what childhood can tell us about adulthood. Happy writing!

This week's prompts

Write about how a person’s perspective on an event from their childhood shifted in their adulthood.

Adults – 31 stories

Write about someone who returns as an adult to a place they last visited as a child.

Adults – 83 stories

Write about an adult event or gathering from the point of view of a child.

Kids – 15 stories

Write about a parent who sees pieces of a family member’s (or their own) personality in their child — whether that brings them comfort, terror, or something in between.

Adults – 20 stories

Write about the moment a child (of any age) first comes to view a parent as a three-dimensional human being, and not just a parental figure.

Teens – 23 stories

Stories

“Grandma's House” by Corey Anderson

Submitted to Contest #11

Heavy my heart weighs as I touch the walls of grandma's house. Opening the door, the place was as empty as it was left, yet it looked frozen in time. This same place I grew up in and have an encyclopedia-worth of memories in feels lonely, even in this hello. My first stop would be upstairs, the room my dad would have my brothers and I sleep with him in. I always got the top bunk bed, to the chagrin of my siblings. Most of this time was spent watching cartoons late at night, trying to pull an all-nighter to which Dad would force me to turn it...

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“The Puny Pine” by Barbara Pearson

Submitted to Contest #11

1966, a slow quiet, day warm and sunny, a school day. Grade one, was always overwhelming. However, there was a day a " Special day" as far as I can think back the most beautiful day ever! We were given a " Grade One " tree! A real live tree. I was so thrilled! Well I couldn't stop feeling so grateful. This wasn't a big tree. It was in fact a " Puny Pine" Only to me, it was a " perfect Pine" It was the focus of my whole day.Was she thirsty, was she bent? Where was she going to go?. We moved so often as I remember. What if we moved? What wil...

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“A love that was never there.” by Tim Webster

Submitted to Contest #11

Well this story is about my chasing a love that was never there.My name is Tim. My story starts when my mother died of cancer when I was about 6 months. When my mother was in her death bed she asked members of her family to try and get me away from my father. They went to my father's work and told him that they wanted me and he refused to give me up, so they decided to find me at the babysitters and kidnapped from him. I was raised by my aunt for almost 15 years until she decided to send me off and abandon me in a mental hospital for childr...

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“Pancakes” by Jared Smithofjared@yahoo.com

Submitted to Contest #11

John stared at his handiwork. A painted popsicle stick frame. Red, green, orange. Most of the macaroni was gone, either chipped off by the uncountable falls or chewed upon after said fall gave Barney, the old lab, the opportunity to snack. He felt the hum of the old refrigerator under his finger tips. Linoleum cold under his socked feet. The lights, those long, tubed fluorescent types, warbled a white glow. He smiled, remembered the smell of cooking bacon. Of pancakes, stale coffee, and the all too unforgettable sound of the sizzling sk...

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“17 years later ” by Pallavi Nerella

Submitted to Contest #11

17 years later I have lived in London ever since I can remember things. I have spent my life here. This is my home. My friends and family are here. This is my life. But I never thought I would go back there. I would connect to the places there and decide to live there for the rest of my life. Something unexpected happened and my life took a turn. Read on and find out. Hello. I am Avi; Avinash Agarwal; and this is my story. I live in Westminster, London. I live with my dad Ajit Agarwal and my mom Anju Agarwal. They are my world...

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“The Acorn and the Owl, A Short Short Story” by Michael Lacey

Submitted to Contest #11

A man sits at the base of a mighty tree. He stares down at a smattering of acorns, some whole and others broken, some harvested and some wasted. He remembers being a child, when he was unsure and, frankly, apathetic to what kind of tree this was, yet it still stands, taller, wiser, and well worn in every way. Disease has tried over and over again to take it down, but each has failed. This tree that will have to be taken down from the inside, by a rot that eats away until the tree must give up. So far, the tree has stayed strong. As a boy, he...

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“Enchanted ” by Lizzy Wilson

Submitted to Contest #11

Most of my memories of my childhood were dark and painful. Lorelai recalled in her own mind. She remembered the beatings and the inappropriate acts her family had done to her. Poor lorelai was just an object of her families pleasures at the ripe age of 13. Before that it was mild. The worst part was her mother was just as involved. Family members and other strange men would pay her mother and lorelai would be locked in a room always tied up or strapped to the furniture. The stuff that was done to her was unspeakable. Lorelai never forgot. Bu...

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“The Possibility of the Playground” by Rebecca Peller

Submitted to Contest #11

Last time I was here, I was dressed in corduroy pants and a lightly stained t-shirt, my long hair up in high pigtails. Last time I was here, I was with my mother because last time I was here, my mother was still alive. I wasn’t allowed to go on the monkey bars due to my mother’s anxiety that I would fall and cut up my limbs on the woodchips covering the ground below, but sometimes, when she turned away for just one moment, I would reach out and hang on the first bar for a second before returning to the platform and pretending that I ha...

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“Childhood Woods” by Lauren Halliday

Submitted to Contest #11

The soft crunch of leaves under my boots gave a familiar warmth inside of my chest. I hadn’t walked this trail for a few years now, more than a few years honestly. It was 11 years ago when I was last anywhere near this trail. The thought of coming to visit the old scent of pine had never crossed my mind until now. To my left, far past the trees, peaked my old house. Strangely, it still looked the same, however, the feeling of seeing it was different. I didn’t feel youthful joy or anything that you often read within stories of remembering pas...

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“The Beginning of Freedom” by Steve Krieshok

Submitted to Contest #11

I parked the car across the street from the elementary school and sat, staring. I could feel my friend/mentor/life coach, Zack, glancing at me and then at the school.“How many books or stories or movies has the main character who goes back to somewhere like this said, ‘it looks a lot smaller than it did’ or something like that?”Zack laughed, “Every single one.”“It’s not always true,” I said softly, “sometimes it looks bigger.”“Do you want to talk about that before we go across?”“No, I’d be stalling. There will be enough to talk abo...

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“The Same Mistakes Make The Story” by Nigel Stone

Submitted to Contest #11

The man steps off the bus and kicks himself for missing his stop. For God’s sake, it’s only been ten years since he was last here. How much could have changed in a decade? He hitches the rucksack he carries on his back into a more comfortable position, takes a hold of his suitcase, figures out the quickest route to his destination, and then sets off walking towards the housing estate. He feels the damp seeping through the hole in the sole of one boot, and almost immediately trips over the untied lace of the other. He stops and tugs at the la...

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“The Parking Lot” by Kaitlyn Selvasingh

Submitted to Contest #11

Returning to that parking lot gave Amber Rose a lot of flashbacks. Flashbacks to when her father would take her to that exact parking lot and beat her till she bled. Flashbacks to when her mother left her and her dad in that exact parking lot and running away with some rich guy who could actually afford his house. Her father struggled to pay rent until his last breath until he was too weak to beat her, so he cried. Every day until he died for 13 years because his wife left him and his daughter in that very parking lot.

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“La Lune, Por Siempre” by Cleo Valentino

Submitted to Contest #11

OCTOBER 14, 2019 A room --- a makeshift home to invite in the most wondrous imagined lives. Daydreams galore, complete with wistful glances at the white ceiling, even in these, you, as a child, had found faces, stories. Slightly mournful, you packed your books. One by one off the bookshelf. All your knick knacks, withstood the test of time. Of heartbreak. Countless betrayals in the form of rapd heartbeats against a pillow, with wine purple covers --- suggesting opulence. Opulence, you could spell words like that. As a child, winn...

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“The Waft Of The Wind” by Ella W. Darie

Submitted to Contest #11

The car started to slow down. I gently turned the wheel and drove the vehicle under a tall oak, right by the end of the forest. The area around me was treaded down, and it was obvious more cars often park here. All of my memories started to come back. If I came here in a car, about twenty years ago, I would be buried in bushes, tall grass, and weed. It was impossible to get here otherwise than on foot or with a bike. Nowadays, I haven't sat on a bike for good ten years, and I'm not much of a walker either. Ever since I got my driving license...

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“Umma” by Hannah So

Submitted to Contest #11

It was hard to see. My wiry black bangs had grossly overgrown and were now uncomfortably poking at my eyes with all the obstinacy of a spoiled child and the wiriness of untamed pubic hair. I peered through this unyielding curtain at the face across from me, just inches away. The summer morning was quiet. Soft shadows of honeyed sunlight spilled through the window and danced across my mom and I, who sat face to face in our small bathtub. I sat on a yellow plastic stepstool while she kneeled, scrutinizing my face. Her forehead was furrowed ...

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$50

Prize money

172

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 18, 2019 EST

Won by Lee Witkowski 🏆

Title: The Tree

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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