Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

4350+ Creative Nonfiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. The creative nonfiction stories on this page deliver exactly what it says on the tin: true stories told in weird and wonderful ways.

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The Best Creative Nonfiction Short Stories

Made for those bookworms who love the compelling freedom of fiction but are looking for a little bit of the real world in their reading, creative nonfiction is the radiant lovechild of elegant poetry and rigorous reportage. Writers of this genre aim to present the truth — factually accurate prose about real life and real people — in a brilliant and creative way. Its faithful readers find themselves as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.

As a literary form, nonfiction can be a little hard to pin down. At its crux, creative nonfiction applies literary techniques drawn from poetry and fiction to content that would be at home in a textbook — making for an entertaining read that you might just learn something from! Among creative nonfiction short stories, you could find an insightful memoir, a dramatic monologue, hot, witty journalism, or a tight, personal essay.

Looking for new creative nonfiction stories? 

Look no further! Every week, hundreds of writers submit stories to Reedsy’s short story contest. On this page, you’ll find all of those that are categorized as creative nonfiction stories. This means that the featured writers were triggered by one of our prompts to look to their own experiences and reveal a true-life story — but, crucially, they decided to tell it in a brilliant and creative way. 

If you want to find the cream of the crop — perhaps the next Joan Didion or Jia Tolentino — then look to the top of the page: that’s where we’ve gathered all the winning and shortlisted entries. And don’t forget, if you’ve got a story to tell (fact or fiction), you too can enter our weekly contest and be in with a chance of nabbing the $250 prize plus a shot at publication in Prompted, our new literary magazine. Now wouldn’t that be a story?