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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#63: Autumnal

It’s finally fall in the Northern Hemisphere. While the leaves are being slow to change out my window this year, the air is crisp and the pumpkin spice products are out in full force. Time to break out the sweaters!

Beyond all the colorful trappings, though, fall is by definition a season of change. So as you craft your stories this week, try to think about how the events you’re writing will change your characters' lives, whether fundamentally or just a little. After all, even a seemingly mundane afternoon can be the turning point of your entire life…

And if you want to drink some apple cider or a pumpkin spice latte while you write, more power to you!

This week's prompts

Set your story in a coffee shop that’s just introduced a new line of autumnal drinks.

Fall – 161 stories

Start your story with the line, “By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.” (Whether this is a literal fire is up to you.)

Teens – 324 stories

Write about a character making fall decorations out of construction paper.

Kids – 45 stories

Write a story from the perspective of a bird migrating for the winter.

Winter – 128 stories

Write about two characters going apple picking.

Fall – 249 stories

Stories

“Fires” by Korin Enochs

Submitted to Contest #63

"By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire." I began, my eyes trained on the floor. I sat in a dimly lit therapy room, the colors resembling the warm feel of the autumn season. It had taken me six months to tell the woman sitting before me what I was forced into therapy for in the first place. Now that I had spit out the first sentence, a wave of existential dread flowed over me. What the Hell was I even doing here? I strongly believe therapy is overrated, but then again, when you aren't paying for it, you don't have much of a s...

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“The Coffee Shop” by Lizzy Evans

Submitted to Contest #63

The leaves were on fire with all the reds, oranges, and yellows! I was walking by the coffee shop with leaves falling left and right. I saw a big bright red and orange poster, it had 3 drinks on it. The drinks looked delicious, there was an iced coffee, a latte, and a new drink I had never heard of. It was a chocolate drizzle coffee, it was a light milky color, it had foam on the top, and a thin chocolate drizzle on top. I had never seen anything that had looked so good! It had just come to my realization, that I had been standing there, sta...

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“The Kitchen Window” by Halle Brewer

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire as the colors of red, orange, and yellow, swirled and followed the gesture of the wind. The old crooked woman seems to rake it, but unfortunately, the winds are stronger, and made her bonnet fly out of her reach. It landed to my hand. I held the old worn out bonnet and gladly approached the woman. "Here you go, Mrs. Buckely," I said, as I handed her the bonnet. "Thank you dear, you have such a kind heart," She said in almost a whisper, might be because she has some problems in her sp...

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“The Leaves Were on Fire” by Charly Woods

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I thought back to the vibrant shades of red, orange, and yellow that would dance as the wind blew shifting everything in its wake. This wasn’t a new occurrence, so I continued on my way. I tuned out the different shades focusing on the ground that was littered with more pale tones of browns as the dead leaves continued to flow downward. The rapid movement of the wind made me huddle closer in my coat, and soon my vision began to slightly blur as my focus shifted from the sidewalk to the ...

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“Beyond the Flames of Rage.” by INDERPREET ARORA

Submitted to Contest #63

Setting: 1829 By the time I stepped outside the leaves were on fire, along with the house behind them. But the fire that rages inside me burns hotter than the one outside. My mother, a woman made of pure love, dignity and respect, was the only one left in a lineage of the traditional herbal potion makers in the town. She got her knowledge from her grandma, who got it from hers, and so on. She used to make potions out of the local plants, herbs, trees and mosses local to our town, and they were effective as hell! All the townsfolk used to...

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“An Unsuitable Season ” by Lily Lucero

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The bright leaves of ember which fluttered and scattered the sidewalks did not suit Mom being gone. Her death had come a season too early. It should have been winter, when the trees were barren and desolate of life; when everything once vibrant was drained of all substance. “You need a jacket?” My little brother Garrett raised an eyebrow. He was always trying to take care of me; it made me feel like an insufficient elder. &nbsp...

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“The Apple Tree” by Luna G

Submitted to Contest #63

“By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.” “Sir,” the officer began, head tilted to the side and pencil in hand hovering over a notepad. “Are you aware that your house caught on fire?” Tay slouched further into the couch, arms resting against his knees. In one hand he held a leaf, it’s stem between his thumb and forefinger, and he gazed deeply at it. His expression laid ambiguously between despair and calmness, one could even say, if they believed that such a thing could be seen, that his eyes were empty. “Who knew that leav...

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“Friends like you” by Amina Usman

Submitted to Contest #63

"By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire," I tell Wilson on the phone. "Listen, I'll let you know the rest when I see you tomorrow." I didn't know how to tell him that Andersen's letters were now burned inside the pile of leaves. Before I could put the fire out, they had burned completely. I couldn't understand how they found them, but that didn't matter because with the letters burned, I lost all hope; they were the only proof I had that Diana was harassed by him. I went inside the house and locked the door. I had no clue wha...

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“Time Between” by K Lewis

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. With a sigh, I closed the door.“You know, if you don’t put that out, Mrs Evans will have a fit,” I said.Laura pouted. “They’re a trip hazard. You’re always saying you need to keep this driveway clear.”“‘Clear,’ I said. Not on fire. By my house.”“Spoilsport.”“And what happened to ringing the doorbell anyway?”“Eh. Life’s too short for doorbells.”She looked away then. I said nothing. She didn’t know that I knew. Hopefully, she never would.“Alright,” I said instead. “So, once we’ve put this...

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“Avenir” by Tiana Gabel

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I step outside, the leaves are on fire. I curse under my breath, before rushing down the stairs to my left. Plan B is still free of burning. I stamp out a maple leaf in my way and bound on the balls of my feet through the blaze. After seven hops, I pause, breathless, where a shipment truck tore up grass and left muddy puddles in its wake. The area is entirely free of burning. I lose my footing on slick grass and curse my fortune again. So much for acting like a tourist. Mud Covered in such an elaborate costume, is asking for...

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“The Forgotten Won't Be Silenced” by Raven Wren

Submitted to Contest #63

The Forgotten Won’t Be Silenced By: Raven Wren By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The sky was a coal ignited red, glowing the crimson orange of the devil's eyes. He himself would fear the dark abyss of my oblivion. If the devil burns hot I am ash; if the devil burns cold I am a pillar of ice plunged into the coldest tundra. I am frozen, unable to move, unable to light the flame in my chest and make my life burn bright again. I have been poisoned with the sixth sense of my demise. I know they come for me; yet, I cannot ...

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“Aphid” by Matthew Eubanks

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Reds and golds everywhere. The most beautiful fall I had ever seen. It had been a week since I had been outdoors.Everything started with the algae on the roads. Do you remember that? Big clumps of that filmy moss everywhere. It shut down traffic. Nobody could explain what was causing it or where it came from. It would tear up your tires. They said it was safe but I always coughed around it. The President came on and said, we'll spray for it, we'll take care of it, and they came around w...

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“The Murder of Mrs. Katie Hilliard” by Naomi Marsh

Submitted to Contest #63

"By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire", I read aloud four times over before I closed my notebook. "I need a break, Chance", I told my Pit Bull pup. "Let's go for a walk." He jumped up from his bed and spun circles as I got up to grab his leash. Chance was very well trained already and sat down at the door while I hooked his leash to his collar. He stayed sitting until I told him to come on after I opened the door. Chance stayed by my side the whole walk to the park, stopping when I did, and never strayed too far away....

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“New Autumn” by Sarah Porter

Submitted to Contest #63

CW: Mentions of suicide, anger management issues. By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I had only caught glimpses of the upcoming equinox during my six month stay at the Cedar Crest Residential Treatment Center: nurses shaking off wet umbrellas in the lobby, my psychiatrist meeting me with fallen green leaves stuck to his shoes. With no windows— that would be a hazard to us, after all— in the facility, these small clues of autumn were the only evidence of this literal change of scenery. My view, however, had not chan...

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“Magic in the Fire” by Double Stitch

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time the nurses got outside, the leaves were on fire. The residents of Mountain Rest Nursing home shuffled to their front porch rocking chairs before the sun rose every morning. And this warm, muggy October morning was no different. The majority of residents’ bones were fragile, worn with age, that they needed assistance to get in and out of these chairs. Every morning it was the same scene. The well watered trees were covered in the same green they were back in May and some time in November, all the summer leaves would turn brown a...

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$50

Prize money

907

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 16, 2020 EST

Won by Masha Kurbatova 🏆

Title: come to atlanta!

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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