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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#242: Fine Art

Museums are magical places. There’s something so special about admiring art in sacred, silent spaces, together with complete strangers. In museums, time is suspended; you can forget about the outside world and lose yourself in the paintings, sculptures, and other artwork around you.


This week, let’s write some stories inspired by art and museums. Think about some of your favorite galleries, or consider creating a brand-new museum the world has yet to see. Let your imagination run wild, and maybe even try writing in a new genre. For this contest, the sky’s the limit!

This week's prompts

Write about a gallery whose paintings come alive at night.

Fantasy – 66 stories

Write about someone who accidentally destroys a museum’s most valuable artifact.

Funny – 31 stories

Write about an art thief who is struggling to commit the perfect heist.

Adventure – 31 stories

Write about two characters who meet and/or fall in love in a museum.

Romance – 98 stories

Start or end your story with a character who gets trapped inside a museum overnight.

Thriller and Suspense – 38 stories

Stories

“Met Cute” by Giulietta Villalobos

Submitted to Contest #242

Note: America, Unvarnished is intended as a primarily auditory experience, so we strongly suggest you listen to the podcast if possible, as there are instances of emotion and tone and sound design that cannot be effectively conveyed through text. Transcripts for America, Unvarnished are put together by a team of volunteers, dedicated to keeping this podcast as accessible as possible. Please email us at unvarnished.america@gmail.com if you are interested in offering your services to our ongoing backlog transcription project. S3 Ep13: Met...

1 comment 1
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“The Art that changed my life” by S J Frances

Submitted to Contest #242

I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for anything these days. I’m exhausted, I haven’t slept properly for days, and I’ve not even had time to use the bathroom this afternoon. Thankfully I’ve also had no time to drink water. I park my car on the street outside and run across the road, dodging traffic, almost colliding with a cyclist who shouts a few choice words at me. ‘F you too!’ I scream at his back as he swerves off, but my words are lost in the noise from the street. A car beeps at me and I move off the road onto the pavement. ...

1 comment 1
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“The Museum Overnight” by Stacey Cooper

Submitted to Contest #242

A young woman spends the day at a museum. During the day, she removed the jacket she was wearing and placed it on one of the benches.  At the end of the day, as she is preparing to leave the museum, she realizes that she accidentally left her jacket on one of the benches. She returns to the exhibit where she removed it, and looks for it. The jacket is not on the bench. She then spends a few minutes walking through the exhibit looking for the jacket.She leaves the exhibit and walks up to a staff member at the tic...

1 comment 1
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“Nothing But Kindness” by Paul Littler

Submitted to Contest #242

     Muriel was both embarrassed, at being locked in the toilet, and then angry at everyone leaving without her. Granted, she may have nodded off some point after repeatedly calling for help, but nevertheless, there’d be a strongly worded notelet to the secretary of the ‘Historical Weavers Society (Essex Branch)’ when she got home. When that might be, was anyone’s guess.     It was October and the nights had begun to really draw in and mornings were dark. Muriel had been looking forward to th...

4 comments 4
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“The Backlit Butcher ” by Catherine Corey

Submitted to Contest #242

His apron hung like a leather sheet over his swollen rounded belly.Pasty white skin and thinning black oily hair framed his faced in the shadows of the canvas.A small light hung on a broken chain from a dirty drop ceiling, its faint glow illuminated its surroundings.Yet the butchers face remained in the shadows.He leaned over his cuts of meat, thick arms with chunky fingers held a large cleaver.Blood ran down a hard stainless steel table off a dark stained wooden chopping block and pooled on a hard tile floor.The pool of blood was bright red...

2 comments 2
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“MUSEUM OF THE PAST: A WALK THROUGH LIVING HISTORY” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #242

I always wondered what the past was like. I always wondered what the people were like. Were they nice, happy, cheerful? Or were they sad, angry, hopeless? The past fascinates me. I love history. I love learning anything and everything about history. For the longest time I have been researching a time period that has been my obsession for so many years. This time period spans 100 years in the 20th Century. The 1900's is what made my time, the year 2550 what it is today. History is part of us, a part of who we are. I want to show my love of hi...

2 comments 2
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“TREVITHICK’S REVENGE” by William Dalley

Submitted to Contest #242

TREVITHICK'S REVENGEThe huge figure towered over the room and his steely gaze fastened onto Mark McDuff and said “You are the one behind all this, you’re Camborne born and bred! You should ashamed of yourself!” He gazed intimidatingly around the rest of room and roared “Let’s hear no more of this, or I’ll be back!” With that he stomped out of the building, plaster fell from the ceiling with his every step and the councillors desks seemed to tremble in fear. The outer door slammed shut and everyone sighed with utter relief.   &...

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“The Paintings That Got to Know Each Other” by Jacqueline Clavey

Submitted to Contest #242

The Paintings That Got to Know Each Other The boats and ferries that plied the Thames in front of Tate Britain were moored up for the night. Big Ben, in the nearby Palace of Westminster, had already struck midnight. London had settled down after a busy day. Then, the night-time silence at the art museum was broken by a child’s voice. “Can we come out now?” a young girl called from within a painting named Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. The  painting was part of the newly opened Sargent and Fashion exhibition, and it now found itself surro...

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“My Father's Study” by Christopher Kooker

Submitted to Contest #242

I was five years old and had not yet grasped the extent of my father’s failings. As children do, I accepted the world as I found it. Here I was, flitting up and down the carpeted halls of our family home, skipping between the patches of light refracted through the high windows. There was my father, nestled somewhere in the corner of our home known to me only as his study, wholly absorbed in whatever affairs occupy men in their private moments. It seemed natural if not inevitable that we should exist on opposite sides of the stately French do...

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“Uncharted” by Susanna Quinn

Submitted to Contest #242

France, 1924 Augustus eyed his pocket watch. 11:58pm. He was already feeling the heady effects of the elixir that the old man at the museum entrance had handed him just a few minutes ago.  “There’s nothing to it,” he whispered to himself, trying to boost his confidence. “I can do this.”  Ever since Augustus first heard of the museum’s Magical Nights tour, he knew he had to experience it. It was not well advertised due to, well, stories he had heard from past participants. Whispers in dark alleys, money exchangin...

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“Dancer's Judgment ” by Ava Morgan

Submitted to Contest #242

The International Museum of Fine Arts is not an exhibit to be taken lightly. This beautiful museum made of smooth, ivory marble might be a gem to the outside eye, but the true treasures are hidden deep inside. This renowned museum attracts hundreds of visitors each year. They all come from around the globe to look at gorgeous works by world famous artists alike. But this museum has always had an even deeper treasure hidden within. It comes out only in the night, when the loud visitors are nestled away in their beds, our artworks come out to...

2 comments 2
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“Madame X” by Susan Lamphier

Submitted to Contest #242

   "If you've seen one Monet, you've seen them all." Madame X said to herself. She stood before the umpteenth "Water Lily" painting in the Monet exhibit, soon to close.     Dressed in a long black dress, with auburn hair and pearl straps, she had had to spend eternity lifting one strap to her shoulder. Her artist, John Singer Sargent, was encouraged to paint out her fallen dress strap for a more conventional, if less appealing, strap placed firmly on her shoulder. She was stuck, always having to adjust...

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“Lila” by Lukundo Choonga

Submitted to Contest #242

Dawn creeps up on you. The sunlight whispers it's time to go home again. You leap off the gallery floor and back into your frame.Your frame is beautiful, custom carved from ebony to fit you, Perrault's final painting.You watch as visitors walk up and down the corridors, stopping to sip wine and mumble critiques in front of the canvases. You've always wondered why they mumble, why they speak in hushed voices instead of just screaming their thoughts. You know youwould if you were standing where they were.You listen to the exaggerated complimen...

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“The Unraveling of Kione Zephyr” by Dr. Stephen A Salaka

Submitted to Contest #242

Kione Zephyr breathed in the scent of history, the hushed silence of the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista seeping into their bones. Their footsteps echoed faintly across the polished stone, a lonely counterpoint to the rhythmic beat of their heart. Haunted since childhood by tales of curses and relics whispered by their Ethiopian grandmother, Kione had always been drawn to the hidden patterns of the world. Here, surrounded by centuries of faith, the weight of their task settled upon their shoulders. The Shroud of Turin, steeped in mystery ...

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“Knights at the Museum” by Samantha G

Submitted to Contest #242

The Museum of Anachronisms was a profoundly uninteresting place where even pigeons chose other buildings to defecate on. Its main attraction, and by “main” I mean the only thing that stopped tourists from thinking it was a public restroom, was the legendary Chalice of Chronic Disappointment. It supposedly held the distilled essence of every disappointed sigh ever uttered within the museum’s walls, making it, paradoxically, the museum’s most fulfilling experience. Consequently, this chalice was guarded with the kind of intensity usually reser...

3 comments 3
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$250

Prize money

264

Contest entries

118

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 22, 2024 EST

Won by Niamh O'Dea 🏆

Title: Do Not Touch

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!

Prompts | Big Blue Hand | 2024-11

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