Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Menu

✕
CONNECT
Editing Design Marketing Publicity Ghostwriting Websites
BLOG
Success Stories
APPS
TOOLS
Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships
ABOUT
About Reedsy Terms Privacy

CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree.

Posted in Spring on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Sorry, we are not accepting submissions for this prompt as it is not part of an active contest. Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy Prompts account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or create a new Reedsy account:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 246 stories

“At the Corner of Peach and Limon” by RJ Neel

Submitted to Contest #90

My tree is at the corner of Peach and Limon, right at the edge of the park. It’s only about three blocks from our house, but since you have to take two turns to get here, sometimes it feels far away. And safe. It’s far enough away to feel safe. Anyway, you can’t hear the yelling from here. I came out tonight to sit under its rustling leaves, tucked up in the branches where the human world seems smaller and I feel closer to the birds, and the insects. Sometimes, when I’m really still, an owl swoops beneath the branches only feet away. I...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Raven and The Fire ” by Dzyun .

Submitted to Contest #90

In the middle of an unknown ocean there lived a little girl with hair the color of gold. She was the daughter of a baker and loved to explore.Every morning the baker would go out for a very long walk at dawn and would only return to his home once the sun had completely risen. But as time moved on and the baker passed the little girl was left all alone.She became filled with grief for she knew no one else but the baker. She took to her passion of exploring and soon found a wise old willow tree. The tree seemed as if it was weeping for a lost ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Elm Tree” by Angie Steckley

Submitted to Contest #90

        Jack, a farmboy with unruly blonde curls, runs towards the boundary of the planting field. By summertime, his trips to the back lot, the spot he has chosen, will have formed a walking path amidst the tall, sun-reaching corn plants. But now, in April of 1944, the field is ploughed and ready for planting. Jack imagines he is floating in the air, and looking down, the furrowed ground might look like rich brown soil drapery covering a hidden window. What would he see if he pulle...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Tree” by Honor Willow Brown

Submitted to Contest #90

Withering away, not as sprightly as it once was, the tree sits atop the hill at the bottom of the Carnwath farm. Scars are running along the trunk and the blistered bark invested with a mustard tint. The crispy auburn leaves cling to the wrinkled, twisting branches. Skinny, creeping branches collect at the bottom of the trunk, trying to reach for any opportunity to sprout new life. Signs of old ones are left. Chipped pink and blue paint. Four tiny scratches itched out. A carving of old lovers’ names. The tree’s birth itself. Claire Crawford ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Queen of the Flowers” by T.K Wilson

Submitted to Contest #90

The white climbing rose that stood on the east side of Keep Meridian’s garden had many names. To rose fanciers, (who came from miles around to view her splendor) she was the Scimitar Rose. To the bards, she was the noble Queen of the Flowers. But to the Elves of Meridian, she was Akasma, or at least the only part of her that remained in this world.  In life, Akasma was a dryad. The dryad of white roses, the Queen of the Flowers, her husband was Lord Rhodon, the dryad of red roses, and the King of the Flowers. She was long dead, killed...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Frankincense and The Myrrh” by Lyn VJ Bennett Wilson

Submitted to Contest #90

There is something so genuinely pure about growing plants simply for the delight of their fragrance. It has been my family’s job for 3 generations. How we came by this occupation is quite a story and one that comes with a rather odd request. We, or rather I, must ask you, dear reader, to use discretion about revealing the contents of what you will read hereafter.  The story begins in 1946. My grandfather, Dr. Jamison Edward Charles Stewart, taught what is now called Paleoethnobotany and Ancient History as a...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Hard Times” by Chris Jones

Submitted to Contest #90

The field was immaculate. flat, and bounded by right angles. The grass had been mowed down in that way that makes neat columns so that the whole field drew the eye up to the monument that stood in the place of the old mill. It was orderly, except for the tree. The tree was old and gnarled. There was a square, knee high, fence around it that tried to keep it apart from the ordered grass, but the tree’s roots had begun to grow out under the fence so that the boundary wasn’t even. An old plaque inside the fence, with moss grown all over one ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The old oak tree” by Jackie TheBest

Submitted to Contest #90

I find communication with most people exhausting and dull. Talking is not something I do unless I have to. Walking alone in the forest is my favorite leisure activity. It allows me to clear my head and focus on myself. I am what some people call ‘introverted’. I used to think that my life is doomed to be lonely and I was to sink in deep thoughts about the purpose of my own suffering. One day I decided to take my usual route in the forest. It was a warm, sunny day in March and many trees had just started flowering. I left the bustling city ar...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Evergreen Memory” by Gracie Farrar

Submitted to Contest #90

Renata rested her hands on her knees and breathed as Jared settled to a stop next to her. He looked winded as well, but not as much as Renata. She’d always thought it unfair that boys seemed more fit for this kind of stuff than girls.The storm winds rushed through the woods, pushing her in the direction that they had been running. They prompted her to keep going, but she couldn’t. She needed to rest. Her parents were right, she should have let Jared go it alone. He was faster than she was; he’d laboriously worked the fields while she’d washe...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Great” by Audee Halim

Submitted to Contest #90

I Not an Old Tree I am a 1000-year-old Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree, or Pinus Longaeva if you prefer. Quite self-indulgent to have ‘Great’ in my name... Anyway, my timber and branches the strongest it has ever been in my life. I am the very picture of youth – for trees, that is. Though I’m rooted in one spot, I find time for my own amusements – or more accurately, they find me (they, being the people who come and visit me). People have come and shared their greatest cheesiest of loves and most gruesome of pains; so close and intimate...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Under the Sweet Gum Tree” by Mary Cryns

Submitted to Contest #90

Under the Sweet Gum Tree. The sweet gum tree sits in the middle of our vast front yard in Eugene, Oregon. Its wide, immense trunk stretches up into branches that stretch out everywhere, sort of like an umbrella in the front yard enveloping anyone who sits underneath it or near it. A swing hangs from a branch, but I’ve only seen it used once. When the pandemic began over a year ago, the branches were still bare except for dozens of round things which reminded me of sticky pine cones. They’d fall down all over, and I never walked out there bar...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Safe Place” by Ethan Gardner

Submitted to Contest #90

The man sat on a horse beneath the great oak tree. His wrists were raw from their bonds, and the rope that would be his end tickled his neck. A large crowd had gathered to watch him meet his fate. He held his head high as the executioner aimed the crossbow, then fired, startling the horse into action. Many in the crowd gasped as the rope pulled tight on the man beneath the tree. * * * Roran ran as fast as his eight-year-old legs would carry him. He ran until he was sure no one would see him cry, unaware that he was crossing onto Lord Br...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Our lovely Mango Tree” by Pina Bastos

Submitted to Contest #90

Feeling the air in the shadow of that mango tree brought me back to my early days. The perfume of the fruits began in December. So Christmas had this particular fragrance in the house. It was an American colonial-style house, like the one in Gone with the Win, in a small size. My mother had seen a picture in a magazine and told my father she wanted something like that. She was not an architect but she made not only the design of the facade lest the plan inside, with a dining room on one side, a living room on the other, and a hall in black a...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Millie's Cherry Tree” by Sydney P

Submitted to Contest #90

The first one walked towards the tree in the early hours last Friday, she was tearful, staring at the trunk in silent regret. She was pretty, curly black hair, dark skin, but had the dullest of brown eyes. Her arm swiveled towards the branches a foot over her head, hand just barely grazing the pink blossoms before a quiet whimper emerged from her lips. "I'm sorry, Mill. This is the last time I'm coming to this damn tree," She frowned, holding a diploma in her left hand. "It's Michelle if you didn't already know... dumbass." It was opened and...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Tale of the World Through the Eyes of The Oak” by A. Pie

Submitted to Contest #90

I do not remember when it was that I tasted the light of the sun for the first time - if such a moment even existed. But she was there each time I began anew, bathing me with her luminescence, fueling the desperate growth of my fingers trying to reach her, the determined burrowing of my roots deeper into the earth, and the ever-widening girth of my trunk. I do not remember the first but the cycle is always the same, and it has been happening for ages far longer than the furthest stretches of my memories. The oldest memories I have are of c...

0 comments 0
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story in which an endangered species (of plant or animal) plays a central role.

Middle School – 94 stories

Set your story in a world living with the consequences of a climate apocalypse.

Science Fiction – 134 stories

Write about a community that worships Mother Nature.

Summer – 82 stories

Start your story with someone sitting on a crowded train and end it with them looking out over beautiful natural scenery.

Spring – 258 stories

Contest #90

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: Down to Earth

$50

Prize money

814

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 23, 2021 EST

Won by Nina Chyll 🏆

Title: The Tree Surgeon's Dictionary

View details

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $250!

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢