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

5440+ 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 359 of 363

You First

Submitted to Contest #28

A broken heart hurts. I still remember the weekend when my heart shattered. I had been, I presumed, romantically pursuing a colleague from my workplace at the time. She was leaving the company so I figured it would be even better to pursue the romance. I write pursue, for it was not an equal dance of two partners, it was a chase. Every step I took towards her, I could sense that she took two back, looking back. At the time of course I was head over heels and ignored any signs, all the signs.That weekend the signs were clear as day, though I ...

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MY STAR, FOREVER AND FOR ALWAYS

Submitted to Contest #28

Journal entry. 31.12.2019 Today's my 20th birthday. I know I should be happy but I am thinking about her today. I have grown since the last time she saw me 15 years ago.I am writing about her looking outside the window under the one star and moon in the sky today. For a minute or more I was just staring at my phone screen wondering what on earth I am going to write about her. Apart from my dad. She's the next person I love or loved most. Its been 15 years since she left us. All the memories I have of her are scanted. I even ha...

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Lost Girl's Odyssey

Submitted to Contest #28

We’re laughing, singing to the radio, and watching the mountains fly past on either side. There’s five of us squashed into the same vehicle, but we’re happy. We don’t care if our voices are loud, and terrible. Peter smiles at me, with that innocent smile of his, and I know that there is no greater joy in this life than to love and be loved.  Then his hand strays from the steering wheel to rest in the space between us, and suddenly my mind curls in on itself as I remember a scene so parallel to this one.  It began when she broke hi...

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Obsolete

Submitted to Contest #28

I wished for the release, but it never came. Numbed and buried beneath the icy waves. Walked amognst them, tall and proud. A corner of my heart remains the same. A corner is all that is left in her love of you. I don't, but my heart forever will. I don't need your touch, but I crave the roaring in my ear, of the shivers down my spine when my name leaves your lips. I am wrong in every way, especially for you. I can see in it your gaze and even when you look away. I can't help but dream, dream into my endless nights of a light that never shone...

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What I Could Never Say

Submitted to Contest #28

Pain has always provided me with a moment of clarity. Depending on the cause, the clarity could last only moments or a few days. When my head was muddled beyond comprehension, I turned to pain to clear the waters. As far as coping habits go, it’s a pretty awful one, but years later I still haven’t kicked the habit. Though it has evolved over the past six years, the purpose and damage hasn’t changed very much. When I was fourteen, I was introduced to the concept of cutting, a practice where you took a sharp object and dragged it across your s...

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Thoughts in the Jeep...

Submitted to Contest #28

Nights like this, I love to sit in my Jeep Wrangler and just reflect on my life. On this particular night, though, my mind wandered down the path that I swore I would never go down again.             Like an obstacle in my way, “she” stands in front of me; though, her face was blurred out, her arms were wide open as if to embrace me and engulf me in her sea of deception once more. This succubus…Was she someone whom I’ve actually had interactions within this lifetime?“Why d...

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I'll Send You A Lot of Letters, But Not This One

Submitted to Contest #28

I loved you from the first moment I saw you.I would never tell you this. There’s a power balance in relationships, and I’m already so much in your debt that more ammunition is quite unnecessary.Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t loved you every moment since then, and there were many moments, days even, when I gave up on us. There were moments where I doubted that I even loved you, or if you were simply the getaway car from the wreck of my last relationship (although it wasn’t so much a wreck as it was a barren desert where nothing ever happened a...

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Say Uncle

Submitted to Contest #28

In my mid-twenties, I dated a girl who nearly cost me my life. She came from a Filipino family that included her mum and two uncles that had stepped in when her dad left when she was little. They were fiercely protective of their niece and harboured an open resentment toward the local boys of their adopted suburb who lusted after the cute Asian girl at the Main Street café. Charlie could be confident, aggressive, impulsive, defiant, and downright manipulative but even at 22, she was still at the mercy of her mother and uncles when it came to...

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THE VOICE OF JOY AND THE VOICE OF GLADNESS, THE VOICE OF THE BRIDE AND THE VOICE OF THE GROOM

Submitted to Contest #28

I was the tall kid. Fourteen, just got my working papers stamped. Mom pointed to an ad in the Riverdale Press for openings on a reception movie crew. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Quinceanerars, confirmations, High School reunions, you name it. I crossed the border into Yonkers and rang the bell at the address I had been given. Jefferson Lincoln, presumably a professional name, opened the door and took a look at me. “You’re my new light man, kid. Sign here.” Jeff explained that my job would be plugging and unplug...

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Mine shotgun (wedding) sheep push hilly herd round the wool, wide web.

Submitted to Contest #28

Preface, (albeit poetically pockmarked titled):Oy gevalt - moi ongepotchket married life,I immediately did kvetchsince sorry excuse for sex pistolmade successful pollination obligatory mandateconcealed within thatched vetchcombining guaranteeing harvesting top notch wretch.Rutting season (24/7/365 days) touted me beingbiologically, effectively, and irresistibly virile - yayonce thy future spouse (Abby Robin)found herself in the family waywith what would turn out to be oy veythe first of our two daughters – I do saydetermined and sealed the s...

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Night of the Potato

Submitted to Contest #28

It was my play. I wrote it. I'd watched it, every performance so far.Super Spud.Seems innocent enough, so why the 13+ rating? Graphic violence, it said. Around scene five even I felt when the audience suddenly realized that things were not going to turn out well. That drop in the stomach. The silence. Dread. A ruined potato town, followed by an eye gouging scene, followed by an endgame reverence that probably hit most people a bit two close to home, and topped off with the bad guy eating yam fries when we'd just watched potatoes we'd thought...

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A Letter To My Love

Submitted to Contest #28

I wish everything had turned out differently. From the first time I saw you, you drew me in like a young child to the bounty that lies under the tree on Christmas morning. There was so much to uncover. I took all my time peeling and ripping each layer off of the present, in the hopes that I would find that which I so desperately wanted on the inside. Little did I know, the only thing inside of you was a cold, dead heart. I was mesmerized by you. You seemed so untouchable, undefeatable, undeniably strong. I hoped that by hanging around you, I...

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A Little Time with Frank by Joe S. Thomas

Submitted to Contest #28

A Little Time with FrankByJoe S. Thomas  Frank was dog tired as he punched the time clock for the umpteenth time. He had worked at the same paper plant for over 30 years. It was Friday. He looked forward to going home, avoiding the wife who seemed to hate everything about him, grabbing his fishing gear and heading to his honey hole. Yes, that was the plan. However, things just never seem to work that way for Frank. He pulls into the long, rutted out driveway that his wife has been bitching about for at...

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Something Wrong

Submitted to Contest #28

The bright pink stain moved rapidly across the window of the wand, smearing a line across the control box and a glaring addition symbol in the test area. I stared at it for about three seconds before I thought, The box says this takes a full minute to work. What is happening here?I took the stick and left the bathroom, my eyes wide and stunned. My soon to be ex-husband sat on “our”” king-sized bed, staring at me with curiosity.“Well?” he said.“It's positive,” I revealed. I sat down next to him, test in hand, which indicated how in shock I wa...

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I STOPPED BY TO SEE MY MOM

Submitted to Contest #28

I STOPPED BY TO SEE MOMI was a mess. I’d taken college prep courses through my junior year, but when I sat down with my Mom to pick courses for my senior year, I had a surprise. “I can’t send you to college, ask your Dad, but you better take some secretarial courses this year. Why’d you ever think I could send you to college?”I asked my Dad. “College? No. I’ll send you to beauty school. Your sister’s doing good there.”“But you sent John to college!”“He’s a boy, you are just a girl.”I got a D in typing, topp...

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