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#292 Colour Your World with Kobo Writing Life

This week’s contest, "Colour Your World," is hosted by our friends over at Kobo Writing Life. The winner of this contest will not only be awarded $250 — they’ll also receive a special bonus prize: a free e-reader! Read on to find out more...

Hello from Kobo Writing Life! We’re Rakuten Kobo’s self-publishing platform, favoured by independent authors all over the world. KWL is a small, author-friendly team with a big vision — we want to help authors reach more digital readers no matter where in the world they are, or how they want to read.

Recently at Kobo, we launched our first-ever colour eReaders! Say goodbye to grey, and take the leap into digital reading with a glare-free, distraction-free colour experience. Give paper some competition, and see just how colourful your library can be.

Drawing inspiration from that this week, let your creativity shine with our five prompts below, and dive into a world of colour. In addition to the usual $250 prize, the winner of our special takeover will receive their very own Kobo Clara Colour!

(Note: We're Canadians and use “colour,” but feel free to write “color” in your story. Good luck!)

Special Update: The Results

KWL's top pick for their takeover was "Sophie's Colours" by Natalie Garside. Here's what they had to say about the winning story: "We liked the hint of magic in an otherwise realistic story, which connects nicely to the main character referring to her 'crone years' at the beginning. Like many romance stories, it’s got more dialogue than description, but we think the characters' voices were captured well. We really enjoyed this sweet and simple read!"

Congratulations to contest winner Natalie Garside and the runners-up, Alexandra Nyx and Lys Light!

🥇 Winner

Sophie's Colours

Natalie Garside

Winner of Contest #292 🏆

Sophie decided to spend what she had coined her crone years high in the mountains in a tiny cottage. Her family thought this was a terrible idea and that was precisely why she knew it was a good one. It was surprisingly inexpensive to acquire one—but after that the real work began. Supplies, repairs, figuring out how the hell to make bread. But that first loaf that came out perfectly… “I am crone, and I am free!” she shouted to the wind. She hiked down to the village every other day and gradually crowded her cottage shelves with teacups in e...

141 likes

⭐️ Shortlisted

Behind the Cerulean Door

Shortlisted for Contest #292 ⭐️

Summer Vlog – Part 1Uploaded June 20th, 2024Video transcript: Hey, guys! Cassy here! Today is the first day of my songwriting retreat. I’ve just arrived at the cabin, and absolutely love it! I’m so excited to bring you along on this summer journey with me! This cabin is exactly what I need—a quiet little place to write some new songs and finally finish the ones I started during our tour. And you guys, just look at this place! There’s a forest, there’s a lake, and there’s literally nobody else for miles! Well, maybe more like a few hundred m...

20 likes

An Excerpt from the Diary of Sylphie Ashe #16:

Lys Light

Shortlisted for Contest #292 ⭐️

An Excerpt from the Diary of Sylphie Ashe #16: (These excerpts, though numbered, were not written in chronological order. We at the Institute of Historical and Archaeological Discoveries are unsure why the author did this.) When I first saw the color blue, I cried. Howard likes to bring it up at work parties, flourishing it like a party favor to garner attention. ‘You wouldn’t believe what Sylphie did when we went to La Crist La Vere!’ And I would laugh along, because Howard, though crass and annoying at times, was overall harmless. ...

18 likes

This week's prompts

Write a story that has a colour in the title.

Short Story – 143 stories

Center your story around a mysterious painting.

Short Story – 73 stories

Set your story in a world that has lost all colour.

Short Story – 93 stories

Center your story around an artist whose creations have enchanted qualities.

Short Story – 41 stories

Write a story inspired by your favourite colour.

Short Story – 56 stories

Stories

Sophie's Colours

Natalie Garside

Winner of Contest #292 🏆

Sophie decided to spend what she had coined her crone years high in the mountains in a tiny cottage. Her family thought this was a terrible idea and that was precisely why she knew it was a good one. It was surprisingly inexpensive to acquire one—but after that the real work began. Supplies, repairs, figuring out how the hell to make bread. But that first loaf that came out perfectly… “I am crone, and I am free!” she shouted to the wind. She hiked down to the village every other day and gradually crowded her cottage shelves with teacups in e...

141 likes

Green Is for Remembrance

Submitted to Contest #292

Rowan, if remembrance were painted in only one colour, it would always be green for me. Of course, that’s all because of you.Yes, my love, every single seed of a moment with you, I’ve nurtured in the greenhouse of my memory. There, I watch it sprout, breaking so deftly out of the rich earth of everyday. Little by little, buds begin to form until it is ripe, ready for the rainbow of petals to open up and perfume every crevice in the heady scent of joy. Now, every time I step into my forest of recollection, a smile creeps onto my countenance l...

61 likes

The Canvas That Hungered

Haweya Abdirman Osman

Submitted to Contest #292

The Canvas That Hungered written by HAWEYA OSMANThe town of Eldermere had always been a place of quiet oddities—where the cobblestone streets whispered secrets, and the air carried the scent of forgotten dreams. It was a town where stories did not fade; they settled in the cracks of old buildings and the hush of wind through empty streets. It was here that Alice found herself once more, sitting across from Sylva in the dim glow of the café.Alice had never wanted to return to Eldermere. It held too many memories, too many ghosts. But she had ...

55 likes

The Strong, Black, Independent Woman

Severine Desrosiers

Submitted to Contest #292

“Mama, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admitted over the phone, her voice barely above a whisper. Dr. Simone Cadwell had always been the strong one. The one people relied on. The one who had answers, who carried herself with confidence, who never showed weakness. But ever since that day in the boardroom, where she lost a part of her identity, she had felt herself unravelling.At first, she told herself it was just stress. She just needed time to bounce back. But as the days stretched into weeks, something felt different. The exhaustio...

50 likes

Violet Memories

Trudy Jas

Submitted to Contest #292

Violet Memories.Killing me softly. (Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox)In memory of Roberta Flack. (1937 -2025)I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style. And so, I came to see him and listen for a while. And there he was, a young boy. A stranger to my eyes.“Mar, you ought to go.” My colleague said. “He’s good.”I’m always looking to sign someone new and have spent many nights in bars and open-mike clubs. Listening, watching. The world is impatient and easily bored. The public demands something new, they want to see a new face, hear a new...

42 likes

Air-Loom 2: The Fuel

Submitted to Contest #292

Air Loom 2: The Fuel-----------------------------------------------------------------1:Well, hellfire and biscuits, you done stumbled into a mess bigger than a hog in a mud pit.Lemme break it down for ya real slow-like, ‘cause Lord knows it took me a while to figure it out my own self. See, I was just mindin’ my business, drinkin’ my sweet tea, scratchin’ my belly, thinkin’ life was about as normal as huntin’ deer on a Sunday. But nope—turns out, I was about three kinds o’ stupid.Ever hear folks talk ‘bout not messin’ with things ya don’t un...

41 likes

Heartbroken

Derrick M Domican

Submitted to Contest #292

The brass bell above the door jingled, startling Jonas from his slumber and causing the leather-bound book on his lap to fall to the floor.“Damn,” the twenty year old in britches, canvas shirt and scuffed boots cursed as he hopped to his feet, scraping his chair back from the counter and turning towards the bookstore’s entrance.A woman stood there, silhouetted against the glow of the setting sun, a woman unlike any he’d seen before.“Good evening,” she said, nodding as she eased the door shut, closing it in the face of a short, fat man clutch...

41 likes

Apparently, Canadians Spell It C-O-L-O-U-R

Joseph Mir

Submitted to Contest #292

Alright, the new Reedsy prompts were just posted. Let’s see the post title… “Colour Your World.” Wait—color is actually spelled that way? I always thought it was C-O-L-O-R, not C-O-L-O-U-R. Am I developing late-stage dyslexia? Let’s look it up.Oh, okay, so it’s spelled both ways. I guess that’s fine. But who in their right mind would spell it C-O-L-O-U-R? Ah—Canadians. That checks out.Ok… So the host of the contest is a Canadian publisher… Does this mean I have to write my whole story spelling “color” as “Colour”? I mean, I don’t want to off...

39 likes

A Portrait of Death

Submitted to Contest #292

Clara Burton stared at the lady in the painting. The woman was old, her gray eyes looking tired, the wrinkles in her face marking time in her pale skin. Around her neck, a silver brooch, set with a crimson jewel which Clara swore sparkled in the candlelight of the foyer. The high neck of her white dress stiffened up to her jaw, lay open at the front, exposing her neck giving her a vulnerability that caused Clara to cover her own with her hand. The dress flowed down the woman’s body, hugging her frame. It covered her bosom, such a last centur...

37 likes

The Lost Colors of The Dustlight

Audrey Elizabeth

Submitted to Contest #292

I have always lived in black-and-white. They drained the color long ago—wrung it from the sky, scraped it from the walls, pulled it from the sunrise, until no one remembered that the world had ever been anything else. I had never seen it. Not really. Color existed only in whispers, a rumor passed from old lips to young ears, a fading memory dimming with each generation. A bedtime story our grandparents told before they, too, forgot what red felt like. What blue did to the spirit. The Bureau called it protection. Color was distraction. Disord...

35 likes

Black African Girl

Waeni S

Submitted to Contest #292

I was born from the black soil of my ancestors, the Maasai people, where the wind whispered of rain long before the first drop ever kissed the earth. My childhood was woven with barefoot chases through sunburnt fields, where laughter cracked through the air. Nights belonged to whispered stories shared in the glow of a fading fire, and the sky stretched endless above us, heavy with stars that looked close enough to touch.In our manyatta, there was no mirror large enough to show me the fullness of my existence. The only reflection I ever knew ...

32 likes

Lavender Ink

Story Time

Submitted to Contest #292

I knew it was my mother forging my signature because she signed it in lavender ink. She never failed to have anything useful in her purse the way other mothers did. No band-aids, no snacks, no wet wipes to clean the face of a child who’s just eaten ice cream. Instead, she had little notepads. Six or seven of them filled with ideas written out in illegible handwriting. Long were the nights when she would sit at the kitchen table under a dusty bulb and curse herself for her own sloppy penmanship. Alongside the notepads were lavender pens that ...

31 likes

Eyes like the blue blue sea

Submitted to Contest #292

‘Oh, Louise, will you look at your gorgeous granddaughter there. Hasn’t she got eyes like the blue, blue sea?’ ‘I haven’t got eyes like the blue, blue sea. They’re green.’ I would reply to Sister Etna as a very honest nine-year-old. ‘Oh, it must be your sisters’ eyes then.’ continued Sister Etna in her soft southern Irish tongue. ‘Well Louise hasn’t she got eyes like the green, green fields of home?’ When she turned to my brother Jimmy who was five at the time, he would say ‘my eyes are brown like poo.’&...

29 likes

Shards of Madness

Submitted to Contest #292

I wake up in a world without color.Not in a poetic, "everything feels dull and lifeless" way, but in a literal, "someone put a grayscale filter on existence" kind of way.The sky is an oppressive gray, the buildings are duller than my grandmother's drapes, and my hands? My hands look like they've been printed straight out of a noir film.I take a deep breath and immediately regret it. The air is thick, like it's holding secrets, and not the fun, "surprise party" kind. More like, "the call is coming from inside the house" kind.And then I see it...

29 likes

THE BLACK INK

Submitted to Contest #292

First, I - Darvico, thank You for taking the time to read this story - even though I should probably talk you out of it. Maybe you'll stop now. Perhaps you won't. I wouldn't blame you either way. This isn't my usual kind of story. I don't know what kind of story this is yet. All I have is a title and a single idea. "The Black Ink" - a story about a painter and diabolic ink. That's it. Sounds promising.Alright. I'm doing it. I'm going to start writing. You can follow along if you want. Or not. That's on you. But just so we're clear - you were...

28 likes

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Contest #293

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

406

Entries

128

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 07, 2025 EST

Won by Natalie Garside 🏆

Title: Sophie's Colours

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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