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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.

5300+ 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.

Creative nonfiction Short Stories – Page 29 of 354

What Am I Gonna Say?

Submitted to Contest #276

I knew she would ask. She always does. What am I gonna say?   Of course, the story doesn’t start there. Yikes, I wonder where it does start? I guess the second week of 7th grade is a good a place to start, when Jenifer rushed up to me with a secretive gleam in her eye, “I know who likes you, Linda?”  “Who?” “Mark Truman.” “Who is Mark Truman?”  A day or two later someone pointed him out playing catch with a football in the hall. A skinny guy with a crew cut and a strange point of hair co...

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Surfer Poet

Submitted to Contest #276

What brought us together? We couldn’t have been more different when we first met.Even being female was not really something we had in common as we were at the opposite ends of that scale, as far apart as if we belonged to different species.She danced into the windowless classroom in the maze of Adams Humanities in a swirl of colourful clothing, already conversing with several other students as easily as breathing, even to the boys, maybe especially to them actually, reflecting back on it. From snatches of conversation, I understood that...

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The Crisis Licence

Submitted to Contest #276

I press the button on the remote and the garage door jerks into life. A few autumn leaves cling to its lower edge as it rolls up, before they lose their crispy grip and flutter down to the concrete. My bike waits in the oily shadows. Like most children I had progressed from push along trikes to stabilised bikes to two-wheel proficiency. Whole days of the late eighties and very early nineties were spent riding around the streets in a state of BMX abandon, sometimes happily alone, sometimes as part of a peloton of weaving bandits. But that was...

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The talented guitarist

Submitted to Contest #276

Hart was the cousin of our cousins, the Gunneys. Auntie Sylvie was my mom’s favorite sister and so we spent a lot of time in the summers with the Gunneys: swimming in their little circular pool, staying in their house in their scenic English coastal village.  The Gunney kids were older than us and we were in awe of them. They had lots of friends, they went windsurfing, they stuck up for one another. In time, they even started drinking and smoking. They were demonstrably cooler than our other cousins.  The main contact was Daisy, th...

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From Andes to Amazon, How I Met Gil

Submitted to Contest #276

Yawar, our leader and guide, was undeniably drunk. The farewell party for the volunteer team we had traveled through the Andes with, ended on a sour note. Yawar had capitalized on his partner’s absence by flirting with the Australian girls. His behavior was entirely inappropriate. The young women were disgusted by his sloppy affections. I monitored him closely, ready to intervene if the girls needed me.Yawar’s girlfriend, Chaska, was also a certified guide. She had left Cusco that morning to deliver her son to his father’s house in another c...

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Willoughby

Submitted to Contest #276

When you die, you die. Your once warm, pulsating heart putters out, your once ballooned lungs leak air, and the unit that had operated as a whole perfect machine of parts and pieces ceases to be. The blood inside your veins stops moving. The electricity in your brain fizzles. And then it’s just a matter of time until the rigor mortis, the decomposition, the “dust to dust” exit from Earth. It’s science.  Or so I thought.  I was raised Catholic, and brought up with the ideas of Heaven, Hell, angels, and the afterlife. If you were goo...

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The worst date ever, that was indeed unexpected

Submitted to Contest #276

I stumbled upon him in the vast realm of the internet about two months before our eagerly awaited in-person meeting. From that moment, I felt an electric connection as we engaged in daily conversations, sometimes even twice daily, deepening our bond. Our talks became a comforting ritual, rich with laughter and vulnerability, allowing us to peel back the layers of our lives and aspirations. Our relationship embarked on a slow yet thrilling journey, igniting a sense of excitement within me. Both of us were acutely aware, drawing from our datin...

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Close Encounter of the Man Kind

Submitted to Contest #276

Close Encounters of the Man Kind I spent nine years wandering in a desert. Searching. Always searching for a way out. Searching for a bright mountain I remembered from before. If by chance I stumbled on a promising route, something would happen; a subtle shift in the wind of fate or a tsunami of faith and that hopeful path would close itself off once again. I tried to convince myself everything was okay. I could survive and be fine exactly as I was. Go with the flow; drought or flood, hill or valley. Enjoy the variety. All challenges would m...

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Another Origami Nothing

Shortlisted for Contest #276 ⭐️

Maybe I’m trying to see shape, structure, where there is none. Good morning. Glass of ginger tea. Paper tag mangled: a little origami nothing. Now let’s unscrunch last Thursday. Wow, has it been a week already?I didn’t see him, not at first, even though he was right in front of me, approaching. I scanned the tables outside, unfamiliar faces, and made to go inside – and that’s when I saw him. Quite small, very thin, dressed in dull blues and greys, a windbreaker. He’d almost camouflaged into the pavement, the drab greens and browns of the str...

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The Social Worker

Submitted to Contest #276

The Social WorkerNames and places have been changed. Some who played a part in this are not included, but in essence this is a true story.Whatever I was expecting, Mrs Lauren wasn’t it. An older woman, well spoken, with not a hair out of place, wearing heels and a power suit, she didn’t fit my image of a typical social worker, whatever that was. The first time I saw her; I didn’t think she’d be much help.***A voice called from the half-open door where my favourite teacher Mrs Swanson was conferring with the school secretary.“A quick word, He...

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A Little Evil

Submitted to Contest #276

Trigger warning: Substance abuse and vulgarity.Names have been changed. “Who is angry at an arcade?”  Fiancee asked looking at the old image on the screen. I found a disk of photos from the early 2000s, and I was starting to regret looking at the pictures. There I was, in full makeup with lipstick, glaring at a pinball machine in a black leather jacket and jeans. I don’t wear makeup or leather anymore.  I don’t do a lot of things anymore. “It was supposed to be dinner and a movie,” I replied chuckling at the memory. “What’s so funn...

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Christmas on the Ganges

Submitted to Contest #276

I turned 21 awaitingMy Iran visaIn Istanbul “Go to Goa” mantraFilled my hopesAnd grabbed my soul The pie shops of Istanbul were full of backpackers. Listening. Speaking. Deciding. It’s not only a geographical crossroads, the gateway from Europe to Asia. On the Hippie Trail of the 1970s, Istanbul was the place to fish or cut bait: head overland to India or call it a gap year and go home. We’d linger over Turkish coffee or tea, playing games with matchsticks or folding paper swans out of gum wrappers as we listened to one colorful pilgrim or a...

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Right Brain Meets Left Brain

Submitted to Contest #276

My father glanced over, surprised. “Since when do you like writing?” he asked. “I’m not sure,” I told him. I didn’t know how, but writing felt like the right thing to do.On our drive home from Rouge Park, in the fall of 2017, I explained to him how during my year-long backpacking trip I wanted to interview people about how they define success and happiness for a writing project.As a child, I grew up loving dance and attended a performing arts high school. I dreaded my English classes and started studying sciences in university after gra...

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The Last Dolma

Submitted to Contest #276

Note: many names have been changed because of privacy concerns. Ari died on July 5, 1976. He lived long enough for America to see its 200th birthday, but I doubt he was aware of it; he had been in a coma for two weeks.I cried during his funeral, as did his four brothers and sisters. His parents stared at the coffin being lowered into the ground, dry-eyed and, not surprisingly, seeming just a little bit smaller than they had been. The mom clung to her two youngest kids while the dad draped his two large arms around the eldest, squeezing their...

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The School With No Uniform

Submitted to Contest #276

It was a Monday morning in 1990, the year that Saddam Hussein invaded our home in The Gulf. I was 9 years old. My brother Ethan was 7. My sister Claire was 3. My older brother Gideon - who liked to be called Ronnie - was not with us, but he was 14. My mother was 36 years old and struggling with the weight of an 8-month pregnancy. We were newly arrived in England, the country I was born in after my parents escaped the regime of His Excellency, President for Life Idi Amin Dada, The Last King of Scotland, in order for my father to complete...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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