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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#77: Snow Day

It’s deep into winter where I live and here that means one thing: snow, and plenty of it.

While I’m not the biggest fan, even I will admit that it makes great writing weather. There’s just something cozy about curling up with a blanket and a cup of tea, and losing yourself in the world of your imagination as flakes drift slowly past your window.

We won’t all be writing under those conditions this week, but we can still evoke that feeling. So grab yourself a mug of something warm, snuggle up with your laptop, and dream of the bite of winter wind on your cheeks…

This week's prompts

Write about two people going sledding for the first time in many years.

Fluff – 130 stories

Start your story with someone looking out at the snow, and end it with them stepping tentatively onto a frozen surface.

Winter – 233 stories

Write about someone who gets stuck in their workplace during a blizzard and decides to explore rooms they aren’t normally allowed in.

Winter – 162 stories

Write a story set in the summer, when suddenly it starts to snow.

Summer – 159 stories

Set your story in a remote winter cabin with no electricity, internet, or phone service.

Winter – 246 stories

Stories

“That Happened (two)” by 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚎 𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚝💙

Submitted to Contest #77

I was staring at the falling snow outside the window when Ryan walked in. “Hey.” “Hi.” “What are you looking at?” We just woke up and he was already starting his nonsense. “What do you want?” “Nothing.” He seemed genuine. “I’m just looking at the snow.” “I thought you hated it.” “I hate being in it but it is pretty.” “Ok.” He walked out the room and didn’t come back. I went back to stare out the window but something caught my eye. There was something sticking out of my brother’s backpack. I couldn’t really tell what it was or why that ...

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“Abel” by Amaya .

Submitted to Contest #77

Carmella pulled up to the house and cut the engine of her small red car. With the car’s rhythmic thrumming gone, the serene silence felt light and refreshing. Lucia, her little sister, gasped slightly beside her. The two stared up at the house through the windshield in awe.In actuality, it was more of a house than a cabin. It was tall, multiple floors, and seemed almost crooked. It looked almost as though it had been abandoned for a couple of months, except that the driveway was shoveled and the extra snow was piled in heaps on the weed...

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“Cora” by Emmie Greensgate 🏗🔚🔚👫

Submitted to Contest #77

Deep below the building on First and Main, sixteen stories of glassy, modern tech lab balanced above it, a strange chamber sat, untouched, full of the lights of the monitors monitoring nothing, with a cold stone floor and alarms on the door, reachable by climbing a set of steep cement stairs, and it almost was… waiting for someone? The chamber wasn’t empty, though. In the middle of the room, walled off by weird, black computers that looked like they belonged in a lab in the forties, two metal chairs were bolted to t...

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“Skate On” by Daniel R. Hayes

Submitted to Contest #77

It was a cold and dark wintery night. The snow started light at first, and then quickly started to get heavy. By morning the small town of Gemstone, West Virginia had accumulated 4 feet of snow. Just waking up, Mike looked out the window and said, “Nope, not today. I’m not going outside in this weather.” Mike used to love going outside in this kind of weather. He used to be a champion ice skater along with his wife Anna. He gave it all up when she died five years ago from breast cancer. Her loss had devastated him. Anna was the light ...

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“Retention Labs” by Joshua G. J. Insole

Submitted to Contest #77

Louise Carlson stared at the computer screen, the CCTV footage frozen still. She chewed her inner lip. “HR is gonna have our heads on a platter for this,” she said to the empty office.Noelia leaned into the doorway. “Hey, Carlson, you figure out where our man is at yet?”Louise pulled a face. “Well…”“No luck? Hm. Maybe I oughtta phone the company, see if he’s ill.”“Actually, I found out what happened to him.”Noelia glanced up and down the corridor. She slipped into the room and pulled the door shut. “I don’t like how you worded that, Miss Car...

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“Solitary Snowstorm ” by Maggie Hicklin

Submitted to Contest #77

The squall of snow never slowed, the plip-plip pattern hitting the windows adding a dreamy rhythm to the bookstore within. Shelves upon shelves of used books which smelt of broken hearts and mild dust lined the walls. The fluorescent lights flickered every minute or three to remind those within of the brewing blizzard. A young woman sat at the only cashier’s desk. Her brown hair fell in curtains around her oval face, and her brows scrunched in study as she read the book balanced on her lap. “Who are you?” She looked up t...

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“The Cat ” by Jocelyn Fryer

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #77

The doubtful guest announced itself on a bleak Winter’s morning, the unflinching bite of foretold snow hanging heavy in the air. Amelia had wrapped herself warmly in a leather coat that had once been her grandfather’s, lined with wool, and wrestled into a pair of boots a little too small but industrious all the same, leaving the sheltered confines of the log cabin for the shed to retrieve wood. She had brought with her a dog-eared copy of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, hoping it might inspire her writing. One she was anxious to get...

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“Melting in the Sun and Freezing in the Snow” by Niveeidha Palani

Submitted to Contest #77

Author's Note: This seemed a little silly, and childish to write, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It was fun to write, and I hope you had fun reading it too! Calista lay, sprawled against the sun, wearing denim-cut-offs, and a cotton jersey. She fanned her hair desperately, yawning, and licking the melted sticky popsicle that trickled across her hand. She stood up, tossed her hat, and trudged lazily into the house to find her four-year-old brother, Jax pasting his head into the freeze box, panting. She giggled. "My turn," she smiled, sh...

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“Break-In” by Christina Marie

Submitted to Contest #77

Carol stood on the front porch waving, watching taillights disappear into the dark through the first fat flakes of November. Marmot had received an early dump of snow this year, and Dan and the kids had been eager to hit the slopes. With winter’s opening act forecast to fly in fury across the prairies overnight, she had tried to convince them to wait until morning to make the four-hour drive. Dan insisted it would be better to beat the stormy roads and weekend traffic, and she hoped the weather would hold until they arrived safely in Jasper....

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“The Last Man” by Christina Marie

Submitted to Contest #77

Beside the crumbling remains of the Trans-Canada Highway, between the ghost town of Banff and what was once one of the most photographed lakes in the world, rots a cluster of forgotten chalets.Long ago, when money mattered, it cost up to as much as six or seven hundred dollars per night to claim the keys to these coveted log cabins. Rustic and charming, nestled in a grove of towering pines, they welcomed travelers from around the world at a time when the park buzzed with tourists, like millions of ants, swarming the pristine rocky passes.Now...

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“Counting the Snow” by Kelly Ellen

Submitted to Contest #77

She touches her window. Each finger from both hands must touch the cold glass once, pressing into it with a precise amount of pressure. If it is not the right pressure then we will just have to start over. Right hand one, two, three, four, five. Left hand one, two, three, four, five. Then she rubs her fingers one by one against her thumb. Right hand one, two, three, four. Left hand one, two, three, four. As she finishes her routine she gazes longingly out the window above the shiny, silver sink. The sink is rarely used. She would hav...

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“Enchanted ” by We All Feel Lost Inside

Submitted to Contest #77

Note: This is not part of the prompt!!! I just wanted to show this story! :) Enchanted (Prologue) One day I was laying in the grass with my horse Jewel. Jewel is a gray horse with dark gray main and darker gray spots all over her. I was holding an orange flower and looking closely at it. “What do you think it’s called Jew Jew?” Jewel nayed in response as if saying, “Not sure....

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“Two Of Us” by A J

Submitted to Contest #77

The falling of white snow on the ashen ground, like silver glitter being sprinkled on paper, giving the winter life and making familiar streets a canvas for dreams. Quiet poetry forms in my soul, the warmth within bringing crystalline joy. Every tiny, sculpted snowflake, unique and worth a thousand smiles, a billion more uniting over the earth. It is the season when puddles turn to icy rinks, sparkling brightly upon the falling of rays of the brightest star in the sky, the season where one can see their breath rise as neat and pure vapor, th...

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“The cold that keeps me” by Goblin King

Submitted to Contest #77

I stare out onto the vast blanket of white before and it glares back at me with the sun’s piercing rays. I rub my eyes and blink a few times. My foot taps on the slippery wood beneath me. It provides a backbeat to the lengthy nothing that floats on the wind like an invisible paper airplane. I steady my foot as it gives a final, grandiose tap to end its performance. Its impact creates a few small cracks in the ice. I sigh. A small fog appears in front of my face. As it dissolves into the air it floats towards me in the wind.The win...

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“Spring in Winter” by Hannah B

Submitted to Contest #77

Gods it was hot. Sweaty; humid; panting; hot. She huffed a breath in the dense air, surveying her surroundings briefly. There were trees, trees, and some more trees, with the added addition of moss, rocks, rotten and fallen trees, and shrubbery that would've scratched at her ankles if she weren't wearing her favorite hiking shoes. It had rained recently, which made every step squelching and the air chilled enough that she seemed to breath like a dragon.The world wasn't the Winter wonderland that it usually was in December, but if it had snow...

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$50

Prize money

930

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 22, 2021 EST

Won by K. Antonio 🏆

Title: Burying David

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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