#164: Where I Come From

Elizabeth Brewster wrote a beautiful poem titled ‘Where I Come From’ — this is how it begins:

“People are made of places. They carry with them

hints of jungles or mountains, a tropic grace

or the cool eyes of sea gazers.”

I’ve always loved this poem’s abstracted sense of local identity, so this week I invite you to consider how your characters’ backgrounds affect their personalities and choices.

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character saying “Where I come from, …”

Middle School – 86 stories

Write a story in which someone returns to their hometown.

Adults – 81 stories

Write a story about coming of age in a big city.

High School – 14 stories

Write a story where a local takes a newcomer under their wing.

Adults – 25 stories

Think of someone who stood on the periphery of your childhood memories (a classmate, a teacher, a neighbor) and cast them as the main character of your story.

Middle School – 31 stories

Stories

“The Every Other Saturday Knitting Club” by Deborah Mosley

Submitted to Contest #164

Yesterday as I flipped through the stack of mostly junk mail that I had fetched from the mailbox, an advertisement for a magazine caught my attention. The cover featured a color photograph of a ball of yarn with knitting needles artistically inserted through the middle. The ball of yarn and needles was sitting on a table beside a retro couch with a knitted afghan blanket draped across the arm. Memories of Mrs. Hudson, my sixth-grade teacher, came to mind. She was tall, with a kind face, and wore little makeup. Her l...

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“It Rained That Day” by Shobana Gomes

Submitted to Contest #164

Where I come from, the rain either poured or danced under rays of sunlight. Rainy days crept up on me in silent acceptance of the ways of nature. They resemble the ire of human nature or the gentle reflection of beauty amidst tempest. Light streamed from the rooftop of an opposite building into my hotel room. The stretched beams bounced off the adjacent walls to project a smoky ambiance to the dull, now partially brightened room. I thought about how the lights shifted the drudgery of darkness to create an almost magical illusion fo...

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“You're Never as Far as You Think” by Anne O

Submitted to Contest #164

The cabin looks smaller than she remembered. Buried away in the sand dune, off the gravel road sits a small rustic brown cabin with a surprisingly ample porch. Charlie drives up the remainder of the gravel road, her Subaru slanting upward facing an enormous oak tree. She puts her car in park and for safety, engages the emergency brake as her parents taught her to do when parking off the cabin’s hilly road. It’s been over ten years since she has been back here, and she can feel her breath caught inside her as she cuts the engine. This is home...

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“Home” by Elliot Moss

Submitted to Contest #164

TW: CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SEXUAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE, AS WELL AS GORE. BE ADVISED. "It's been a long time since I've been here. In this little, dreary town of Oak Valley, where the sun never shone and the birds never sang. In this house, where the mice didn't dare steal even a nibble of a crumb, for they would be punished just as harshly as the child who begged for dinner. I was seven when my father died. Maxwell Barnes; Max to my mother, Maximilian to his friends, and Daddy to me. He was my best friend, as you know, of course. A wond...

4 comments 4

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“Lorcan: Part 1” by Denaee Baguss

Submitted to Contest #164

I’d only pierced the necks of a few mortals in almost two decades of being a vampire. I should be craving it, yearning for it, even killing for it. Human blood to vampires is the equivalence as gold is to humans. Yet, the rich aroma of human blood didn’t quench my thirst. In fact, it curled my stomach.I feed on the blood of pigs. You’re feeling sorry for those pigs, but nonetheless, I have to eat or I will die. I’m not quite sure if drinking pig blood is against the law as a vampire, so I stick to myself and hunt alone.Even the broiling rays...

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“The Orange Striped Backpack” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #164

He was on a path to a better future until he ran into the bright orange, striped backpack. Eddie needed to get away, and it felt good to use his legs that morning. The train station was full of commuters. Sad, tired people with no purpose, no drive to live, not like him. From the fare gate he had heard the train pulling into the station, his train. Quickening, he took long steps in his well polished leather shoes, flashing as they caught glints of the morning light. The blood spatter was hardly noticeable. Toward the e...

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“Don't Die Young” by Danika J

Submitted to Contest #164

“Where I come from, we don’t die young.” She snapped her bubblegum. She said it so nonchalant – so plain – as if it was. I wrote her off years ago as pompous and self-aggrandized. Poetic. Gold and rubies birthed her, and wealth was a catalyst for that type. I hated the way she perched on my bed. I bet if she stood, my mattress wouldn’t remember her; she floated. Above us, she floated. Angelic, she floated. My mattress remembered me! It embraced me. She floated. Weightless and witchy and wondrous...

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“The Delights of Abalone by a Hater of Seafood” by Kelly Sibley

Submitted to Contest #164

On a hot summer’s night, have you ever eaten scallops seasoned with sliced garlic, salt and pepper cooked in their shell on a BBQ whilst sitting under a silver starlight night surrounded by family? Or maybe abalone, beaten to an inch of its life and quickly seared then smeared with a mild chilli-oil? What about crayfish cut in half, grilled and drizzled with a hollandaise sauce? Or even calamari and octopus cooked with flash heat and then doused in a blue cheese mayonnaise? What about blue crab boiled and cracked open with a nutcrack...

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“Home Town” by Mel Dingwall

Submitted to Contest #164

A prison takes many forms.Some have bars made of steel so thick you can wrap your hand around it. Others have bars made of pointed wood, painted and stuck all in a row to make a white picket fence.As Dad’s prized ‘59 Cadillac Coupe de Ville glided into the driveway, I felt I had just gone from one to the other. We paused before getting out.’Your Ma.’ he started, searching for words. ‘She’s just…it’s been very hard on her.’I couldn’t stifle a laugh. Hard for her. Dad held up his hands.’I know, I know. No one’s had it worse than you.’‘Damn rig...

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“my corner of the world” by Sage Britton

Submitted to Contest #164

I didn’t realize just how much I could re-discover about myself just by returning to the place I’d spent the majority of my childhood. The place I felt was truly home. Those days now seem so much easier, long before being influenced by others, their expectations, by my own insecurities. Back then, in my hometown, those things were all irrelevant, yet to come. I don’t remember ever worrying about what I’d be doing five years from now. I was never worried about having perfected college applications or how popular I was or wasn’t or whether I s...

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“Making Real Memories” by Francois K

Submitted to Contest #164

The Blue Eel restaurant’s majestic view of Ceres station's gently rotating wheel-like megastructures and, beyond them, the stars, had nothing on Sophie’s eyes, glowing warmly as she listened to him recount his memory."Where I come from, we lived in a quaint old house from the 1800s, down by a lake in Maine," Emmet said."Tell me again how dinnertime went," Sophie asked keenly, ignoring the increasingly urgent calls for her from further back in the kitchen area."Dinnertime was a special time for us. Sometimes, my aunt Maggie would come by to h...

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“What For?” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #164

What For?“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me cry.”-Charlie Chaplin1963. Freshman year in high school. Spanish class. I never met him, but I will remember him forever.A foreign language seemed like a good idea. Besides that, my mother insisted on it. Spanish sounded easier than Latin, so I was dazzling my friends with “cómo estás” before day’s end.It was the very first day. Señora Guzman said that all students would be known by the Spanish version of their name. It was easy to come up with the Spanish counterpart for...

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“Unwelcome Homecoming” by Trebor Mack

Submitted to Contest #164

Unwelcome Homecoming Jack Jones stood at the small service window of the police department’s Staff Office. He had come to hand in his police identity badge. After a thirty-year career in which he had achieved the rank of a commissioned officer, they had designated a cadet to receive him. A cadet, for f**** sake! “Where’s your boss? Tell him I wish to speak with him.” Jack needed to call on his willpower not to take out his frustration on the teenager. “He’s busy and not seeing anyone.” “I’m here to surrender my I.D. You can inform Superin...

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“Dreams of Cloudbase” by P. T. Golden

Submitted to Contest #164

Connie Cullen had dreams. Dreams dashed upon the rocks. The same rocks that shattered her spine, leaving her ‘confined’ to her wheelchair. Confined is not a word by which she wished to be defined. Her dream was to be unbound by everything that dragged her down. Unbound by the force of gravity, set free to touch the sky. Quite simply, she had dreams to fly.Irv and Mary Sobel are an extraordinarily loving couple. Irv had one first love, however, a love he nurtured from the age of five. As soon as Irv could walk and talk, his favorite topic was...

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“The red-eye flight” by Dao Huy Kien

Submitted to Contest #164

The dim light did not make it easier for Giang to sleep but only cause her to sink into a vague fear. Among sleeping strangers around, Giang felt loneliness filling her heart. She felt cold, which was not resulted from the air-conditioner but her sorrow. She recalled her previous flight a month before. It was the reverse flight. She was so happy at that moment when she was in the flight returning to her hometown after two years studying abroad. Eagerness and plans danced in her minds. She imagined her parents would cry from happiness when th...

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$250

Prize money

237

Contest entries

91

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 23, 2022 EST

Won by Lindsay Flo 🏆

Title: Mothering

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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#164: Where I Come From

This week's prompts

Start your story with a character saying “Where I come from, …”

Write a story in which someone returns to their hometown.

Write a story about coming of age in a big city.

Write a story where a local takes a newcomer under their wing.

Think of someone who stood on the periphery of your childhood memories (a classmate, a teacher, a neighbor) and cast them as the main character of your story.

Stories