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Looking for a steady supply of american short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

3860+ American Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking for great American short stories you can read for free? Whether they’re written by American authors, set in the USA, or just have that ever-elusive quality of Americana, this is the page you’re looking for.

American Short Stories – Page 6 of 258

DEAR BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL K-5

Submitted to Contest #297

DEAR BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL K-5By Hannah Stone This is a work of fiction with some truth mixed in. All names have been changed. Dear Kindergarten Teacher, I don’t remember you. But I have a class photo, and you look super sweet. Years later, my mom told me she kept bumping into you at bars on the weekends and thought you were embarrassed. Don’t be… she says it’s how single women met men in those days. I just wish my mom hadn’t left my half-brother to babysit when she went barhopping. Signed,The Keeper of Secrets ***Dear Boston Public School...

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Heroes and Men in the City of Angels

Submitted to Contest #297

“Pop quiz hot shot!” “Don’t got time for this, Travers.” Detective Travers laughed, a very inappropriate time for laughter. Sweat dripped down Paul Harmon’s face. The timer on the explosive device continued to count down. Paul needed to concentrate, but for the life of him, Travers decided it was time to be that asshole. “There is a bomb in a skyscraper. The scumbag has told you that if one person leaves, he blows the entire building. It is also the building in which Detective Harmon’s sister works in. What do you do? What do you do?” “Shit,...

14 likes 6 comments 6
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Holding her breath.

Submitted to Contest #297

( Trigger warning the following contains violence and mental health themes. )I just woke up. My chest is tight and I cannot breathe. "This must be an asthma attack", I think to myself. I started to try to control my breaths, but it's not working. This is one of those night time attacks and they are much worse. I start to panic a little trying to recount where my inhaler is. It's my purse, all the way in the living room.I hear a shuffle by the house on the otherside of the room. The skirting of the trailer bends in making a noise. An angry ye...

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The Unwanted Kittens

Submitted to Contest #297

The Unwanted KittensIt was just before midnight, and I was walking home from my friend Tonya's party. I lived ten blocks from her house and thought walking home would be no big deal. It would only take a short time to walk to my house.I was fine for the first two blocks. The streetlights led me down the sidewalk, but when I turned on Moonlight Avenue, there were very few lights, and it was so quiet. All I could hear was my heavy breathing. As I walked in the darkness, my imagination started playing tricks.While I was walking down the street,...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Epigenetic inheritance

Submitted to Contest #297

Smith woke up in a panic. He had hunted sleep throughout his life, and thus it evaded him like a giant white whale. Since his retirement, that whale seemed to hunt him in return. He had normally asked himself his grounding questions in order, but this morning was different. His first question was, when am I? He had fallen asleep in a different room. The French Victorian decor alluded to the late eighteenth century. No, that’s not right. He reminded himself. Let’s narrow this down, what time is it? He looked over at an alarm clock on the beds...

16 likes 4 comments 4
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Arrest Me! I Recently 'Stole' 4 Seed Packets

Submitted to Contest #297

Last week, I shoplifted. Before you rush to judge me, let me clarify: I didn’t realize I had committed a crime until I was loading the items I’d bought at Walmart into the trunk of my car. Honest. The last item I moved was a small bag of printer ink, for which I’d paid a hefty price in the Electronics Department. It was then that I noticed something odd: four loose packets of Zinnia seeds tucked beneath the ink bag. Oh no. I’d missed scanning and paying for them. In that moment, I had to admit, I’d just stolen $5.76 worth of seeds (well, $6....

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Time to Start

Submitted to Contest #297

Why did I have to be so darn trusting? I believed him, even though there was the little voice in the back of my head that said 'he's going to hurt you.' Yet here I was sitting in this packed airport waiting. Waiting for him to show up so we can fly to Vegas to elope. "What time is it?" I heard a voice from behind me bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked down at my wrist that happened to be naked. I left my watch at home for this purpose. It was one thing to torture myself with thoughts, but I refused to by tortured by facts. And ...

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Don't tell me! Just tell me!

Submitted to Contest #297

“Wait a minute,” said Hardcastle, wiping his glasses with his finger. “What time is it?”“Plus la diference, monsieur!” said Peters, the local watch seller. “You do not know how long I’ve waited to hear those words!”“Wait, what did you say?”“I said, of course, that I have been waiting over a century, over a millennium, for you to utter the words which thou has just…Would you like a glass of champagne?”“Champagne? Are you off your rocker, old man? I just wanted to know what time it was! This isn’t dentistry!”“I know, my friend.”“Well, if you k...

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She Would Awaken the Next Dawn

Submitted to Contest #297

The floor creaked under her before she moved, like the old boards could feel her shifting into lucidity. Pale blue light seeped through the cracks in the shutters, just enough to say the world hadn’t ended in the night. Lena sat up, slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The mattress gave a tired sigh, and the wood beneath her groaned like it had something to say. She ignored it. The familiar bite of morning air hit her as she crossed the room barefoot, the worn planks feeling cold and smooth under her soles. Over by the dresser...

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It's a Two-Man Job

Submitted to Contest #297

The origins of this story will remain anonymous. Just know it’s the truth. Ricky and Stick had only two things in common. One is that they were both orphaned in the big McCartle Ranch fire back in ’75. Second, is they both had the good fortune of being taken in by Bob and Betty McGraw. There were no better folks I’ve ever known than old Bob and Betty. Salt of the earth kinda folks. One Sunday, Betty read in the morning paper about how two boys lost their folks in the biggest fire the regions ever known and by that evening Betty fostered ...

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I’ll Remember April

Submitted to Contest #297

Summer, 1995Who ever thought my first love affair would occur in what we called the jazz shack—a once-proud open air chapel in the middle of the forest that Boy Scouts had repurposed with makeshift plywood walls? I also never imagined it would be with a piece of music, but that is truth. It's possible to fall head over heels in love with a melody. For me, it was I’ll Remember April, that ballad made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and countless jazz legends.The wind blew right through that chapel's gaps, carrying with it an assortm...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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F&F

Submitted to Contest #296

Prompt: Center your story around a character who has to destroy something they love.F&F I am a farmer’s son from central Illinois. My playground growing up was acre upon acre of corn fields.To overstate the obvious, my father and mother constantly engaged themselves in the business of corn. They figured they would pass it all down to my brother and me after they left this earth. I guess one could consider it a sizable fortune as my parents’ barn and garage were filled with heavy equipment, like a multiple corn head harvester, multiple...

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10:45 am or The Time that Thing I feared to Happen Finally Happened

Submitted to Contest #297

I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s every teacher’s biggest fear…well, after school shootings and such. For 21 years, I managed to avoid it though I knew it was only a matter of time. What are the odds that it never happened? There had been a couple of close calls, but each time a student had covered for me. For that, I will forever be grateful.I was thirty when I started teaching. Older than most new teachers but still youngish and fresh. I was much more slender and cared more about my appearance. I wore makeup daily and would’ve bee...

15 likes 3 comments 3
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The Red State

Submitted to Contest #296

‘Could you come with me?’Mom was wary of travelling on her own. Dad had always made the arrangements for their holidays. She’d been on a few weekends away with girlfriends and stayed with us at the Cape during the summer, but nowhere by herself.‘Of course,’ I said, though I would have happily skipped this, maybe sent some flowers and a card. Maybe. ‘How long are we staying?’‘Well, the funeral mass is on Saturday and I should go to the wake on Friday. You don’t have to go to that. Put everything on my credit card.’I wrote down the details and...

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How to Describe an Apricot

Submitted to Contest #296

Liz tried to describe the taste of apricots to herself. This was always her biggest problem. Feeling something and having no words for it. It was why two therapists in a row had quit on her. What they took for a reluctance to communicate was actually a lack of vocabulary. Her latest doctor had suggested she seek out opportunities to describe things. She recommended trying a new food, and then immediately piecing together the experience of tasting it--using a thesaurus even, if need be. The need, it turned out, was there, but the online refer...

18 likes 12 comments 12
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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