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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

“Like that?” by Alexa K

Submitted to Contest #63

Sunlight spills through the blinds, thick, like honey. I groggily open my eyes. I rub away dry tears with the heels of my hands. Quickly, I fix my bed up and I wake myself up with an icy shower. As I walk to the cafe leaves drift down and I crunch leaves as I walk. I open the glass door and I see Jessica writing on a blackboard with a wooden border. I look around the cafe to find a girl glaring at me. Her brown hair cascades down her back with her thin bangs that stop at her eyelids. Freckles dance along with her cheeks and nose....

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“Coffee Confessions” by Julianne Baldiga

Submitted to Contest #63

My dream of opening a coffee shop was fulfilled a few years ago when I overheard the previous owner talking about selling out. I count my blessings as I was in the right place at the right time that day. One can learn a lot about the neighborhood by owning a coffee shop. I see and hear everything. It’s amazing how most people think they are inside of a private conversations as I am hiding in plain view, absorbing it all. It’s a scary reality to hear what people are actually saying when they think nobody else is list...

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“Faded” by HIA CHOUDHARY

Submitted to Contest #63

I took out my purse and suddenly a piece of paper fell on the ground, I took that paper in my hand and there was written a number with a message "Call me if I'm still in your memory." I was trying to recall how that paper got in my purse ......I remembered it was saturday afternoon and I was hanging out with my friend, Hana at a coffee shop , what was its name......ah...yes!" Love has no season" The name was a bit weird and it opened only a week before with new autumnal drinks. We went for that new line of drinks that they introduced recentl...

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“Autumn Anniversary - A Yoshi X Kurohime Story” by LeVar Little

Submitted to Contest #63

Yoshi’s wolf-like face took in the sights of the coffee shop. The environs were alive with the sights and smells of autumn drinks. The conversations were many, some couples and some people chatting with the employees. He scanned the crowd as he came in. “Must you wear that face all the time, Yoshi? I’m sure you can relax here now.” A light feminine voice whispered into his ear. Enter Kurohime Hanaka, a woman that the world didn’t d...

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“Cordelia's Cafe” by Oli <3

Submitted to Contest #63

The scent of maple cinnamon and pumpkins seeps through my mask. I pull my mask a little lower and inhale again. S’mores and pecans. Autumn. The loveliest time of year. I round the corner and find the cafe covered in crimson red leaves. It looks better in autumn. Everything did. I enter the cafe. It was unrecognizable. Orange wallpaper peeling near the ends, small rotting wooden tables and cobwebs forming near the windows. This could not be the place I met her. “May I help you?” the girl behind the register deadpans.&nbsp...

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“"Change is needed"” by Mithila Nanhe

Submitted to Contest #63

Hi..how are you ? I am so glad to see you. How's all going ? said Swati to Shalini, to whom she met suprisingly in market. Actually it's been 2 years now Swati, that you sold your flat in "Bajaj Tower" and shifted to "Paradise Society". Since then, we both didn't get the chance to meet each other. I am also happy too see you here, said Shalini. So are you still living there with your In-laws in "Bajaj Tower" and what about the change of coffee...but before Swati could complete her sentence , Shalini said how long are we going to stand here...

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“Coffees of Autumn” by J.B. Dixon

Submitted to Contest #63

“Nothing to fret about, Terry. You’ll learn the ropes quickly. Me and Ange’ll teach it all to you.” “Thanks Jewel.” Terry said as her, Jewel, and Ange walked up the deserted street to the Café Bean coffeeshop. “This is my first job and I don’t wanna botch it.” Ange unlocked the store then dashed inside to silence the alarm. “Ain’t nothing to it.” The brunette said when she waved the other two in. “You got about a month’s worth of leeway to get the basics down. Although, if you’re as smart as you look, you’ll have it in less time.” She wi...

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“Coffee Talk” by William Tells

Submitted to Contest #63

“Lemmi get uhhh...” “step aside Karter, there are people in line that actually know what they want,” I cheekily said before picking out his usual, Cappuccino. “What if I want something new? Huh?” This made me look up at him surprised. “You’ve never asked for anything new since I knew you. What’s the special occasion?” He thought for a second before flaring up his hands in the air and saying, “nevermind, I’ll have the usual.” “Don’t get him that order!” My dad yelled while coming into the door. Sighing and rolling my eyes, t...

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“All Things Considered ” by Austin Miner

Submitted to Contest #63

What the fuck is Autumnal? Fucking coffee shops are always pulling this gimmicky bullshit. Whether it’s helping kids with cancer or puppies with no home, busissnesses are always trying out some sort of gimmick to drum up business. So, it's no surprise to see the window chalk on this hipster coffee shop read “autumnal drinks". It’s always some sort of bullshit to get the half-brained liberals to flock and spend their money on everything from pumpkin spice this to pumpkin spice that. I’d like to show ‘em my middle finger and they can pumpkin s...

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“The Photograph Room ” by Cat Palacios

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire with a charring sense of prosperity that comes with being self-assured, maybe self acquitted? No that's not the word. Self-defined? Wait, how can leaves be self-defined in the sense of a poem written by Mary Shelly, where the monster is eaten up by the fire of his own longing for a lost love. No, they weren't on fire. Perhaps they were thrown instead. Thrown like the words that you threw at me about my insecurities. See, I mopped up the words splattered on the w...

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“Fatima's cell phone” by Soundarya Kose

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside the leaves were on fire. The winds were blowing harder, everything had caught fire by the heat wave generated by Fatima. She was my childhood friend, her anger had power of burning everything, atleast when it was on me. For a moment I was left thinking of the reason. Was it because I copied her homework without prior permission or because bunked class without informing her? It was eight of clock and I don't think it's late, our school time is nine. Why is she yu angry? I wondered. "Era aren't coming out?", She s...

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“The Fire and the Flames” by Dakota Sims

Submitted to Contest #63

The Fire and the Flames By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I couldn’t believe my eyes at what I was looking at. As the gray smoke filled the air off in the distance was a cloud so giant it put fear into my heart. I told myself that I knew this day would come but I didn’t know it would be so soon. The cloud was in the shape of a mushroom then all the sudden this giant gust of wind had hit me. As I looked around everything flew away or disintegrated in thin air. I knew that it was a nuke but I didn’t understand h...

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“Praying for Autumn” by Emily W.

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. It was a beautiful world of glistening colors, the red, orange, and yellow hues flickering and burning bright in the chilled wind. How long had I been trapped in that dark prison, chained down in fear by the ferocious yells of anger and spite? How long had I been cornered, trembling at the beck and call of a fickle temper? Lips scarred and torn from biting them, nails bloody and raw from the same treatment, my anxieties were visible but still well hidden. Shrouded by years of practicing...

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“The Trip Unfinished ” by Libby Horn

Submitted to Contest #63

As the air was getting colder I knew migration was near. I am not going to lie, I am really scared to migrate, because this is my first time doing it. We do not travel alone, we combine with another flock to go to the same destination, for safety reasons of course. As we all lined up, the leader of our flock, the oldest and wisest, which was my Father yelled, “Take off begins in three minutes”. “Yes sir”, yelled all of us birds. As the three minutes were wearing thin everybody lined up in the tradi...

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“The Wrong Pick” by Mary Bain

Submitted to Contest #63

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Grace turned to find her boyfriend grinning at her from the driver’s seat. The way the sunlight illuminated his dazzling brown eyes, she wasn’t entirely sure that she had woken up; perhaps she was still in a dream. Miles was a charismatic pediatrician that she happened to meet two years previously at a coffee shop in Seattle where they now shared an apartment and a dog. With the exception of their parents occasionally butting heads, the relationship had been particularly predictable and secure. She had grown ...

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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.

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