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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#190: Eras

To quote Brooklyn 99, Taylor Swift “makes all of us feel things.” With her honest and reflective accounts of growing up and searching for yourself and your place in the world, she’s managed to trace her remarkable coming-of-age arc in a way that millions of people can still relate to.

This week, let’s remember what growing up feels like, or take inspiration from Taylor Swift’s master storytelling to come up with a new story. But remember — using lyrics isn’t allowed!

🥇 Winner

“Dear Coldplay, I Love You. Wait. Scratch That.” by Éan Bird

🏆 Winner of Contest #190

This letter isn’t to you, the band. This letter is for the band’s front man.My apologies. Let’s start over.Dear Chris Martin,I love you. But we need to break up.You don’t know me, Chris. We’ve never met. You grazed my hands at a concert once, but I’m told that doesn’t count. But you and I have history, my dear; decades of triumph, grief, adoration, frustration knotted and woven together in indecipherable patterns. I’ve discovered, in recent contemplations about our relations, it’s nearly impossible to unravel.This letter is a risk. I’m shari...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“Killer Ratings” by Darryl Roberts

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

The stealth drone hovered over the backyard of the suburban house, its camera zooming in close to its subject.A boy, kneeling on the lawn, in one hand a praying mantis, the other a pair of tweezers. Holding the insect close to his expressionless face, he slowly ripped the legs off the mantis, then once that task was completed, immersed the body in a jar of water that lay on the grass in front of him, until the insect stopped struggling and was still. A thin smile played across the boy’s face.“Hey Dave!” Richie called out across the bustling ...

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“Flightless” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

There was a time when men could fly— Bobby pressed his makeshift goggles to his freckled sunburned face, the ones he’d rigged from transparent artifacts he’d found floating on the salt flats.—a time when people sped from continent to continent faster than the wind—Bobby shoved his hands into gloves made of ancient vinyl he’d harvested himself from the buried city. —skimming over empty oceans, gliding over barren mountains, traversing the endless deserts without even touching the sand—Bobby puffed his cheeks out and climbed int...

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“Muggle Magic” by V. S. Rose

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

After a taxing two-day drive from Toronto, Tiffany and I arrived at Hogwarts. To our left, a magnificent castle dominated the blue Orlando sky. Thin clouds floated like wisps of cotton candy above the castle’s towering spires. On our right, the village of Hogsmeade buzzed with activity; a frenzy of tourists milled from shop to shop. Straight ahead, across the wooden bridge we stood atop, the entrance to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter beckoned us forward with spellbinding fingers.As incredible as the park was, I didn’t feel the magic. It...

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“Color” by James Freeh

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

I had just bid goodbye to the exterminator when Egge called. “You’ve got to come over, right now if you can.” In that whiney voice he used when distressed, he continued, “I’ve done it, I’ve created a new color. It will change your world, it will change my world, it will change the world! Get over here right away.” I hadn’t seen Egge for a month or two, so I was willing to amuse his sudden request. “On my way, I ju...

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“Speak to Me” by Frances Gaudiano

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

Speak to Me “Speak now,” Virginia said to the photograph of her sister. She waited patiently. She had always been patient with her sister, an emotional woman who had been married five times, always to assholes. Virginia has sat through many midnight phone calls with her sister, Elizabeth, sobbing on the other end of the line. Virginia had waited till the sobs subsided and then said, “Speak now.” She said it again to the photograph but it remained silent. Fine, there were other people to talk to. Virginia drifted over to the grand piano. N...

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“IT'S A HELL OF A TOWN” by Kajsa Ohman

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

I believe some people are sensitive about mindless promiscuity, even a single sentence of it. The year was 1939, in the merry month of May, and New York City was preparing itself to deliver what some hoped might be its favorite character. St. Vincent’s Hospital was the venue of choice—right in the heart of Greenwich Village, where the competition for created characters was fierce. And sure enough, here she came, though not as quickly or effortlessly as would have been ideal. Alicia, with four syllables, after a popular Russian ballerina ...

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“The Second Symposium” by Alasdair Perry

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

Last night was something of a disaster. It started out well enough. Alexander and I had gone to see a play put on by his twin sister, Eleanor, at the university’s theatrical club. I remember him coming to my door and asking if I wanted to come along in his usual stiff, matter-of-fact manner. He kept his hands behind his greatcoat and rocked slightly on his brogue heels, evidently feeling faintly awkward but nonetheless maintaining his rigid posture and keeping conviction in his clipped voice. They were st...

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“Mr. Stocker” by Benja Catton

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

The door drew the students towards it like the magnets grabbing up the iron tailings in the labs they’d just completed. Mr. Stocker shook his head in quiet bemusement. Most of these kids had expansive, icy personal bubbles more befitting of polar bears than humans, but when the lunch time bell was approaching, they’d crowd together like fans rushing Taylor Swift for an autograph. He wondered if they were even aware of their proximity, or if they were so singularly focused on getting away from each other as quickly as possible, that they didn...

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This week's prompts

Start a story that begins with a character saying “Speak now.”

Dialogue – 86 stories

Write about someone who decides to make their own version of something old.

Character – 36 stories

Set your story in New York, where someone’s been waiting for your character.

Adventure – 39 stories

Write a story about a fandom

Funny – 27 stories

Start your story with someone vowing to take revenge.

Dark – 62 stories

Stories

“Dear Coldplay, I Love You. Wait. Scratch That.” by Éan Bird

🏆 Winner of Contest #190

This letter isn’t to you, the band. This letter is for the band’s front man.My apologies. Let’s start over.Dear Chris Martin,I love you. But we need to break up.You don’t know me, Chris. We’ve never met. You grazed my hands at a concert once, but I’m told that doesn’t count. But you and I have history, my dear; decades of triumph, grief, adoration, frustration knotted and woven together in indecipherable patterns. I’ve discovered, in recent contemplations about our relations, it’s nearly impossible to unravel.This letter is a risk. I’m shari...

Read story

“A Bride in the Hand is Worth Two in the Books” by Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #190

“Speak now,” said the clergyman, “or forever hold your peace.” Silence. Nothing moved in that tiny church save for the dust motes in the beams of golden noon light, and for just that moment all eyes turned from the bride and groom, eagerly watching if anyone would dare. And then, just as everyone was about to exhale, the creak of the door opening juddered through the air. And a man entered the church, his shadow looming down the aisle. “Yeah,” he drew out. He held a briefcase and he doffed his hat. “Might be, I have a word or two to say.” Th...

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“The New Language” by Zack Powell

Submitted to Contest #190

We called it Yopanko. No real reason why, other than the fact that it was a word we could all pronounce equally. There were no S sounds for Georgie's tongue to mash into lisps. No Rs to trigger Kelvin's Elmer Fudd syndrome. And no Ls to make me self-conscious about my hand-me-down accent, the byproduct of my mother's emigration from Nagoya, Japan to Seattle, Washington. Our speech impediments, our insecurities, our home and school troubles—suddenly none of that seemed to matter.What mattered was that Yopanko was ours, a new language entirely...

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“Grace and Mercy” by Thom With An H

Submitted to Contest #190

“Cleopatra?” the barista shouted as he put the cup of coffee on the bar. “It’s Cleotha,” the elderly woman replied, grabbing the cup with her name conspicuously misspelled. “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty . . .” If she hadn’t been in a hurry, Cleotha would have preferred to get her coffee from 7-Eleven or Dunkin’ Donuts. She never understood why seemingly intelligent people would pay more than five dollars for an average cup of coffee created by a self-absorbed twenty-something. On this day, however, necessity forced her to ...

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“I Swear I Loved You” by Amanda Lieser

Submitted to Contest #190

Author’s note/CW: this is the third story in my trilogy on marriage. I specifically found myself musing on all the ways matrimony impacts our society these past few weeks. I found myself wondering what I would have done had my husband come out of the closet to me right before our wedding day. This is that story. There’s some degrading language and a whole lot of anger, but it’s all used to hi-light the complexity of the human heart. “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” I mumble under my breath. I had thought I’d get to hear those words at...

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“Mitzee’s Revenge” by Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #190

Someone is going to pay, and they are going to pay dearly, Mitzee fumed silently. Actually, no! He wasn’t going to be silent. He opened his mouth and yowled, continuously.He paced in his cell, the four walls seemed to close in upon him and he, who was never claustrophobic, even in the tightest of spaces, began to feel like he couldn’t breathe. Minimum security, my ass! He thought.How long had he been incarcerated this time? He couldn’t tell. In a fit of boredom and pique, he knocked a container to the tiled floor, where it smashed ...

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“Amazing Grace” by Cecilia Maddison

Submitted to Contest #190

**Content Warning: murderous, psychopathic behaviour**“It’s terrifying, Mercy,” says Mrs Stafford, when she finally finds her voice. “It must be taken down.”I don’t understand. It’s a magnificent scene. A vista of 17th century London is stapled across the wall-mounted display board, crammed full of rickety wooden houses cut from corrugated cardboard. Tissue paper tongues of flames engulf the buildings, sending sequined sparks soaring into a soot-black sky. Panic-stricken Londoners flee the inferno in a steady stream, their crayoned mouths in...

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“Killer Ratings” by Darryl Roberts

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

The stealth drone hovered over the backyard of the suburban house, its camera zooming in close to its subject.A boy, kneeling on the lawn, in one hand a praying mantis, the other a pair of tweezers. Holding the insect close to his expressionless face, he slowly ripped the legs off the mantis, then once that task was completed, immersed the body in a jar of water that lay on the grass in front of him, until the insect stopped struggling and was still. A thin smile played across the boy’s face.“Hey Dave!” Richie called out across the bustling ...

Read story

“An Artificial Admission of Sins” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #190

Joel Lieberman patiently sat in the AI confessional booth at his local Catholic church feeling like a foreign invader. Born a Dublin Jew, he had often envied his Irish Catholic friends for being able to wash their sins away during their weekly ritual of confessional cleansing. So, on this random Saturday - when he should have been at Temple, Joel decided on the spur of the moment, that he needed to rid himself of the great burden of guilt that had held him down for such a long time, changing his mood and damaging his mental health.Reading th...

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“Flightless” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

There was a time when men could fly— Bobby pressed his makeshift goggles to his freckled sunburned face, the ones he’d rigged from transparent artifacts he’d found floating on the salt flats.—a time when people sped from continent to continent faster than the wind—Bobby shoved his hands into gloves made of ancient vinyl he’d harvested himself from the buried city. —skimming over empty oceans, gliding over barren mountains, traversing the endless deserts without even touching the sand—Bobby puffed his cheeks out and climbed int...

Read story

“Muggle Magic” by V. S. Rose

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

After a taxing two-day drive from Toronto, Tiffany and I arrived at Hogwarts. To our left, a magnificent castle dominated the blue Orlando sky. Thin clouds floated like wisps of cotton candy above the castle’s towering spires. On our right, the village of Hogsmeade buzzed with activity; a frenzy of tourists milled from shop to shop. Straight ahead, across the wooden bridge we stood atop, the entrance to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter beckoned us forward with spellbinding fingers.As incredible as the park was, I didn’t feel the magic. It...

Read story

“SPEAK NOW!” by Viga Boland

Submitted to Contest #190

***Are you ready for more bickering between that loving couple, The Banters? Well here they go again!***“Ok. Speak now…”SILENCE“Martha? Are you there? I need you to speak now.”“Oh, sorry. I was reading.”“You’re bleeding?”“No, READING!”“You don’t have to shout!”“Yes, I do or you don’t hear me. What did you want anyway?”“Well, I’m trying to adjust my hearing aid and I just wanted you to say something. There, I’ve just adjusted it again. So speak now.”“What do you want me to say?”“Say anything!”“Anything.”“Marrrthaaa! Stop being smart. Geez whe...

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“Demeter” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #190

Mother, I just know you’ll love him once you get to know him. Sulfur. My daughter smells of sulfur. Great fires have burned around her. I know this and I know to keep my mouth shut. I clutch my clutch. I avoid biting down on my lip, because I fear getting lipstick on my teeth. Howser should have come with me, but New York City is no place for a dog that wasn’t born here. That wasn’t born smelling the skyscrapers and inhaling constantly the fragrance of streetside hot dogs. Mother, don’t be too hard on him. He’s misunderstood the way all ...

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“The Beautiful Game” by Howard Halsall

Submitted to Contest #190

It was heart-warming to greet everyone outside the crematorium before the service, but to say we were a close family was a stretch. My father’s remaining relatives only communicated by annual greeting card or whenever there was a wedding or funeral. It was so long since I’d seen most of them; I struggled to recognise their faces, let alone remember their names. I’m embarrassed to confess, but I resorted to strategically mumbling my appreciation when they offered their condolences. As they clutched my hand and promised me their undying suppor...

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“The Silver Spear” by Edward Latham

Submitted to Contest #190

Izzy grasped her silver spear with both hands and barred her teeth at the sphinx. From behind the glass of the display case it yawned, crossed one of its large front paws over the other, and didn’t appear in the slightest bit bothered by the girl approaching it.“Speak now, demon,” Izzy growled, “or forever hold your peace.” She hoped she sounded threatening enough, she was sure she’d heard people say that in the movies.The sphinx deigned to look at her and gave one slow blink of its sandy-grey eyes. Its strange feline body and human face had...

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$250

Prize money

250

Contest entries

113

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 24, 2023 EST

Won by Éan Bird 🏆

Title: Dear Coldplay, I Love You. Wait. Scratch That.

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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