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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#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

“Dark” by Katelyn Riley

Submitted to Contest #4

The Ramsey’s hosted dinner that month. We lived in Mesa, Arizona at the time, and the Ramsey’s were our family friends that lived five houses down. Abby, the youngest daughter, was two months younger than me, and my best friend. At 6:50 pm on a September night, the sky kissed the earth with a dramatic fade of purple. It drew me in with a light lavender, gradually transitioning to a hazy violet, eventually cancelling out the sky in a deep eggplant, a simple signal of the oncoming darkness of the night sky. We left my house, Abby and I r...

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“The Dream” by Nadalee Mohon

Submitted to Contest #4

The Doctrine is a nineties rock band that hit the tops of the charts with their debut single, Detour, in 1993. The band consists of its four members, Gambit, Tyler, Freddy, and Bassion. Their story of how they got to where they are today has never been told before. Today the four are here to tell their journey. Bassion: We all grew up in the same town, though at first we didn’t know each other. We all went to different schools and hung out in different places. We all grew up in towns where everyone had a set plan. You go to school, you...

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“Learning to Swim in Shallow Water” by Diane Garner

Submitted to Contest #4

You Can Make It If You TryIt was June 1969, I was 11 years old, learning how to swim at the neighborhood park pool.Not particularly athletic or even interested in being athletic, swimming sounded fun and mom wanted me to learn so I wouldn’t drown as we (well, mom and daddy) had joined our first (and last) country club, with a golf course and a pool with a deep end. She almost drowned in a river when she was my age and her friend died, so this was an important safety course, not for fun.We had moved into a new neighborhood, with a newly built...

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“Go, Marvin. You Can Make It” by Gail S Kibby White

Submitted to Contest #4

Marvin, the mouse, scampered as fast as his little legs and feet could carry him. He had to get to the barn where his family and friends waited. A picnic in his honor to celebrate his “coming of age” was about to begin.Short of breath, he huffed and puffed as he ran across Farmer Jack’s field toward the barn. “Oh, why didn’t I resist the temptation to go to the cornfield this morning?” he whimpered.At least a foot high, the grass and weeds in the field next to the patch of planted corn made it impossible for him to run any faster. Soon, a sh...

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“Someone” by Katelyn Riley

Submitted to Contest #4

A sophomore with no friends. Well she had friends, you see. Past-tense . She lost them all, almost at once. They moved schools, they drifted away, they found new addictions, or simply had enough. She felt so crushed, so small, forgotten. The softball team was big, three teams this year. The school, huge, and the world even bigger. In the midst of all these people. The girl was alone. A constant shower of loneliness and misdirection. She’s lost. Daily reminders of betrayal send tears to her eyes in the middle of class, wor...

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“The Beginning of the End” by Charlene Singletary

Submitted to Contest #4

It was close to 4am when the lights were flipped on and my bedroom was filled with harsh incandescent light from above.“You ruined my life,” my husband of almost ten years spat at my prone form as I blinked away all vestiges of a sweet dream and looked down the barrel of a 9mm nightmare.In the decade spent with him, I had known random periods of fear but no amounts of spending a night in our closet hiding under a pile of dirty clothes had prepared me for staring into the black tube of my mortality.His face had never looked more demonic and m...

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“O'toole's” by Ed Kuhn

Submitted to Contest #4

Sitting at her kitchen table, addressing her share of envelopes, that housed the invitations, Sally Quinn suddenly thought of that 60's Beatles song,...."I'll get by with a little help of my friends." It certainly applied to Claire Graves and her husband Howdy, in helping her to prepare for her husband's 50th birthday party. Meeting every Wednesday night at Sally's while Howdy and Jim went bowling, the two friends managed to put together Jim's half century of life celebration. The ruse...

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“More Than Friends. Forever Family” by Louise Lyons

Submitted to Contest #4

"We've all gathered here today to celebrate our dear friend, Pat," Richard said to those gathered in his basement. It was a cozy affair with a fire crackling in the fireplace. The backdrop of windows behind the couch revealed a flurry of snowflakes. I sat among the room full of people that had become my true family through a difficult time in my life. And it indeed was time to celebrate. Memories flooded my mind, and I grabbed hold of one of Richard. Oh, the many times he came to escort me to chemo treatments.&...

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“Parent on Trial- Would You Stand Up and Walk Out on Him?” by Michael Thompson

Submitted to Contest #4

Fred P. Raines and Romulus Valesco were roommates and varsity wrestling training partners at Western Continental University (WCU). They helped each other finish their education before Fred moved to a small town in the mid west called Hickory Leaf. Romulus married Radisha Ethridge 17 years after Fred moved.Fred and Romulus remained friends, maintaining contact for 27 years. Fred heard about a researcher position opening at his company, Scientific Aerotechnical Systems (SAS), for which Romulus would be perfect. He invited Romulus to move with ...

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“The Problem Solver” by Robert Winkler

Submitted to Contest #4

With his hands clasped together behind him, Rob paced the length of his living room while listening to his friend, Matt. They were coming up on their third hour since Matt had come to visit and laid his problem at Rob’s feet. In a shaky voice, Matt had told Rob he may have gotten a girl pregnant. “Let us go over this again,” said Rob. This was the fourth time he had asked Matt to recount the story. Matt had met a girl at a party hosted by his rugby team.&nb...

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“Gift with nagging” by Liv Sandbakk

Submitted to Contest #4

─ Come on, wrap it up! Julia was so eager that she almost jumped up and down on the couch. Elisa could feel her irritation grow. Her sister was a grownup, nearly thirty years old, not a child. She tried to push aside her thoughts but squeezed the package a little bit longer than she needed. Julia sighed. ─ Shall we start the next round or wait for you? asked Mom. Elisa began the unwrapping. It was a little square thing as she could feel through the paper. She...

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“Wild and Missing ” by Penny Peach

Submitted to Contest #4

“Nestled in the national radio quiet zone, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, and engulfed in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, the sleepy town of Coalburn Virginia was shaken to its core last week when a teen went missing. Oliver Ridgewell, a seventeen year old male, last seen wearing a PUP band shirt, black ripped jeans, a blue flannel, and blue converse. The teen disappeared on Monday-” Quinn couldn’t hear the tv anymore, either it was turned off or her brain was blocking it out. Oliver, one of her closest friends,...

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“Tide Passes” by Lenore Rosenblatt

Submitted to Contest #4

They lie together on the grey and white striped beach chaise and stare at the ocean. He leans against the back of the chaise, legs sprawled in front of him, his tousled, dark hair drying in the sun. Her back is against his bare chest with her legs stretched out between his. He folds his arms around her and she clasps her hands in his. It's late afternoon, and the tide is coming in. With...

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“Now She Will Never Leave” by Elena Alvarran

Submitted to Contest #4

I can see the place where Ella was, her footsteps in the sand ingrained in my mind even once the ocean took them away, erasing the evidence of her existence. I can see Ella’s blonde hair, floating behind her as she lay back, surrendering to the waves. Once she relaxed you could see the tension that had been in the set of her shoulders despite her youth. I can see Ella, hair plastered to her skin, running towards the ocean in the storm. Arms outstretched, not caring about the cold or the danger. But none of us cared about the danger before. I...

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“The Evacuee” by Rachel Baer

Submitted to Contest #4

It was a long train journey from London to Roberta's new home. She was used to the busy streets of a city and living with the all too familiar night terrors of the bombing of London at war in 1942. Her sleep was often disturbed by the wailing of the air raid sirens, her mother rushing to gather rations and hurry along the streets with the rest of the locals to the closest underground train station which served as a huge shelter from the bombs.Hundreds of people would squeeze in, settle down for the night with blankets, food, reading for the ...

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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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