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#4: Woodstock

Last weekend was the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the 1969 music festival that attracted an audience of more than 400,000 visitors, and was known as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music." Its a legendary cultural event, and a large variety of books and documentaries have been dedicated to telling the story of Woodstock. So this week, we thought we'd take inspiration from it too.

Each of the following five writing prompts are titles of songs that were played at Woodstock. As far as writing prompts go, they're pretty broad and open to interpretation, so we're looking forward to seeing the many different directions and stories they lead to.

This week's prompts

Write a story based on the song title: "Beside The Sea"

Fiction – 33 stories

Write a story based on the song title: "My Generation"

Fiction – 22 stories

Write a story based on the song title: "To Love Somebody"

Nonfiction – 46 stories

Write a story based on the song title: "You Can Make It If You Try"

Nonfiction – 14 stories

Write a story based on the song title: "With A Little Help From My Friends"

Nonfiction – 19 stories

Stories

“Canning Day” by Victoria Hite-Moore

Submitted to Contest #4

I love bouncing on Mama’s bed; the chenille bedspread draped perfectly beneath me. The peacock makes me smile. I love the colors, purple, red, gold, and green and the little bumps around the feathers. Papa bought it for Mama when he got the new bedroom furniture. He broke all of the old furniture the night he smashed Mama’s face into the dressing table mirror. I was so afraid. I hid in the closet and wrapped up in Mama’s soft blue robe singing Jesus Loves Me under my breath until I finally went to sleep there on the floor.Everyone says Papa ...

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“Betwixt and Between” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #4

I don’t give a flying you know what about labels and demographics ( handy word – learnt it from an Open University Course in Politics, even though I never finished it – well, not yet) and all that jazz. Honestly. Okay, maybe I protest too much! Of course I don’t want to be stereotyped but I still wish I had something more concrete to complain about – and it’s quite liberating that the tutor in my course in Creative Writing said it’s absolutely fine to end a sentence with a preposition. Me an...

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“To Love Somebody: The Tale of A Queen” by Daniella Idogho

Submitted to Contest #4

To Love Some BodyIt was a terrible day, the rain was about to fall. The harmattan was ending, the dryness was too much before the first rains of the year had come. The mangos were ripe and the toddlers were dancing and playing in the rain. Uzoro village, in the delta part of Nigeria ( named by Lord Luggard's wife a few years ago ) in West Africa was all a lush, fertile land, with rivers. I wanted someone to love but, my parents were banished, from Uzoro so I was more like an outcast. They were accused of robbery. I had a cancerous growth in ...

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“My Heart Is An Asylum” by Daniella Cuevas

Submitted to Contest #4

10:20 pm. A little late for a date but who the hell cares? The chilly air enters my nostrils as I sigh heavily, and hopeless; waiting for love. “She should’ve been here by now,” I whisper to my pitiful self. I told her around 10:00. She maybe running a bit late or just never come. Darn. I miss my kids already. It’s been 5 months since I last saw them. I don’t even know how I was able to cope up with the parting away thing. But I guess that’s that. Like any father, I want the best for them. I’m already finishing my 4th cup of ...

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“TRITON LAUGHED” by Sivaram Govindaraj

Submitted to Contest #4

WRITING CONTEST: #153PROMPT: BESIDE THE SEATRITON LAUGHEDI have lived beside the sea since birth. I have played in the sands of the beach collecting seashells. With a spade and bucket I have built sand castles using wet sand. I have merely stood with bare feet in seawater enjoying the feel of drifting sand as waves recede. And of course I have gone swimming in the sea. I have seen the sea in its various manifestations: In a placid mood as waves come ashore noiselessly and withdrawing with almost a sigh. In a temper with waves rolling ashore ...

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“Echoes” by Hailey Skelley

Submitted to Contest #4

Beep! Beep! Beep! I rolled over and hit my alarm clock snooze button, sighing heavily. It was six am. I sighed and climbed out of bed, glancing at the empty space of where my husband used to lay. I fingered the ring that was still heavy on my finger and closed my eyes, wishing for the pain to go away. I turned my light on, blinking in the bright light. I listened with disinterest to the radio playing quietly on my alarm clock. They were talking about some sort of fire. I bit my lip and turned it off, blinking back another wave of tear...

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“With A Little Help from Friends” by Ayomide Akinsiku

Submitted to Contest #4

"Aw, baby. I'm gonna miss you", Nneka said as she wrapped her arms around my neck to bring my head closer for a quick kiss. Garfield, her cat purred."Come on. It is not like we've never been away from each other before", I said."I know. I guess I'm just feeling this way because I'm wondering how sickly bored you'll be now that you know . . ."She trailed off. I was out of a job, and she didn't want to remind me. Even more so because she had caused it. I had a female boss, and the nature of my job was demanding so I worked late and even on wee...

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“Squirrels at Woodstock” by Colin Devonshire

Submitted to Contest #4

An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Hell and Noise!I came to live here in peace, what do I get?My Generation? Listen to them.I thought I had found heaven. Living on a dairy farm a full fifty miles away from the torture of New York seemed like a paradise. It was.Now what is going on? I stirred, shaken awake, the normally peaceful surroundings were now alive with action, bustle and people, trucks and tons of equipment. What is it all for? Birds no longer sang.The last couple of days were bad enough, people were moving things, big things. The noi...

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“With A Little Help From My Friends” by Christian McCul!och

Submitted to Contest #4

'With A Little Help From My Friends' by Christian McCulloch (1,812 words) Alice wished me, Good morning and I wished her, Good morning back. 'May I ask you, Dr Tommy,' she said, 'why you told our distinguished visitors that we're light years away from pure Artificial Intelligence when I'm a perfect example of your breakthrough?' I told her it was complicated. It is complicated. It's not as if it's too complicated for her to understand. Goodness knows, she passed me on the intelligence scale months and months ago. It's just that I can't summo...

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“It Doesn’t Need to Bother Me” by Christine Hungerford

Submitted to Contest #4

“Come on; let’s go!” We raced towards the school’s front doors six minutes before the morning’s homeroom rang. As my best friend and I scampered to make homeroom so we were not late on the eighth day of our first year in high scho...

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“A GENERATION FOUND ITS SPACE” by Andrew Grell

Submitted to Contest #4

A GENERATION FOUND ITS SPACEPrompt: My GenerationBy Andrew Paul Grell“You’re just not getting it. We can do anything because we’re all different, but we’re all connected. Like the Borg.” Betty Bliss looked at her interlocutor, trying to see if her reference lit up any neurons. She played it safe, waiting for a response.“The Borg?”“From Star Trek, The Next Generation. Now that was a generation. When Captain Kirk hosted a performance of Hamlet on the Enterprise, he wound up killing the lead. But Captain ...

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“Dead Voice” by Catarina Damas

Submitted to Contest #4

"You can make it if you try", I hear a monstrous voice inside my head."She is with your boyfriend now... " the voice continues and I wriggle around my bed. When will I be able to sleep again?"You call her your "bestie" but she never liked you. She likes your boyfriend the most."-Shut up!- I yell."You would be so much happier if you killed her…”-Please...go away- I beg, almost crying."Kill her and I will leave".I get up from my bed at a fast pace and grab my sleeping pills."I will be back in the morning, don't worry" - I hear.After these word...

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“Clean Cool Water” by Nemo Artist

Submitted to Contest #4

Steve believed that if he made the wrong choice everyone would laugh at him. It was about 4:45 am and he was standing chest deep in the little man-made lake near his house. Soon the trail would come alive with the movement of early morning runners. They always seemed to have their shit together, with content looks on their faces. Their tan, fit bodies moving only to taunt the onlookers. What right do they have to look down their noses at people like me? Steve was overweight, always had been, he’d always been able to overlook his feeling...

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“Man's Best Friend” by Scott Parent

Submitted to Contest #4

Jessie will never know how many times she’s saved my life. When I feel helpless, hopeless, defeated, I like to play with my gun. One night, while I was mindlessly loading and unloading my gun, she jumped up on the couch and nudged me with her cold, wet nose. So I stopped fidgeting with my gun and gave her a good head scratching. Then I loaded the gun again and began spinning it on the table like I was playing Wheel of Fortune. I wondered who would take Jessie if I were gone. Probably Kelly, my ex-wife. I took a hard swallow of bourbon. It st...

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“If you love...” by Ridiculous Roze

Submitted to Contest #4

Blind. Janet Stone was blind and in love. Now, unlike every other story out there, she literally was blind, and she would never be able to conquer the darkness. But somehow, she had managed to fall in love with someone she couldn't see; someone who she would never see. For all she knew, he was a fake. Someone who frowned when he said, "I love you", or someone who was with her for her family's wealth."Mike? Is that you?"She stood up from the sofa and trace the all too familiar walls. When Mike saw her stumble towards him, a smi...

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$50

Prize money

134

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Aug 30, 2019 EST

Won by Tula Singer 🏆

Title: Lela

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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