Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

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.

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 7 of 363

Greetings from the Night

Submitted to Contest #300

M. Zavicar7516 I-27Lubbock, Texas 79404 Greetings from the Night It was getting close...I could sense it. I felt quivers, gyrations, dislocations, and relocations as if the world itself was peeling back the old in order to welcome in a new era. This marvel did not touch me....not yet. It couldn’t I believed and left me with a contentment that I would be spared the obvious changes occurring all around me. I waited patiently for anything to reach out to me. Anything calming, reassuring or otherwise familiar to me knowing that I could not expla...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Dad’s Place

Submitted to Contest #300

To me, the warmth, the strength, the comfort and security I felt when I welcomed one of my dad’s hugs was the best place in the world to be, however, sadly, this place ceased to exist nearly 15 years ago. I never really thought about my father’s immortality, of course he would be here forever, never a doubt in my mind, not for a single moment. However, reality hits quickly when you least expect it, this time coming in the form of the shrill sound of my phone ringing, breaking the silence of the dreary Autumn night. With a full day already w...

5 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Haunted

Submitted to Contest #300

Sensitive content: Mention of self harm, attempted suicide, eating disorder, death, and suggestion of sexual assault. “That’s the window she fell from.” Katelyn is pointing up to the arts building where a dance studio is surrounded on two sides by floor to ceiling windows. I nod as though I know exactly which window pane she’s pointing to, even though there is absolutely no way to distinguish one from another. The arts building is one of few modern structures on the campus. Most of the dorms are old colonial houses made entirely of wood whi...

16 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

Vinewood Street

Submitted to Contest #300

My mind races redundantly along a lengthy mental checklist. Tick, tick, tick, tick, but did I actually? Tick, tick, wait start over. Tick, tick, tick...I grunt with frustration as the padlock fumbles in my hand just before finally clicking shut, securing all my earthly possessions carefully packed within a moving truck. My whole life in 27 boxes.I absently glance back at the corner of the house, still counting off: tick, tick, tick, but...tick, tick, am I sure?I’m positive that I’ve forgotten something. I’m always forgetting something these ...

5 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

A Love Letter to the Art of Not Taking Things So Seriously

Submitted to Contest #300

There’s a kind of quiet magic in deciding - in only a moment - not to take everything quite so seriously. It’s the sigh you let out when you take your hands from the keyboard and stop trying to win the productivity Olympics. It’s the moment you realize the dishes will still be there tomorrow and waiting until then to do them will not change the trajectory of your life.For most of my adult life, I spent believing that being a successful adult meant color coded calendars, crumb-free counters and cleaning baseboards on Wednesday's. But as I mov...

10 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Two Large Cups of Cuban Coffee for Sonny Crockett

Submitted to Contest #300

I admit that Miami Vice, the police series Don Johnson starred in in the 1980s, had something to do with my decision to leave New York and move to Miami that same decade. In the harsh winters in the north, while outside the window the snow covered streets and houses with an icy white blanket, the vision on the television screen of a warm, sunny city on the shores of a clear blue ocean offered a tempting contrast. The detectives in the series, always dressed in light pastel designer clothes, always moving aboard speedboats or in exotic cars u...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Misadventures on a Peruvian Train

Submitted to Contest #300

Misadventures on a Peruvian Train Phillip M Williams2120 words The Desamparados Railway Station in Lima, Peru was bustling at 7.00am. “Get there early to claim a seat” was the advice from other backpackers who we’d met the night before in a bar in the Plaza de Armas. We were all travelling cheaply in South America in September, 1976, and this cohort of multi-cultural adventurers were bound for Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas. Marie joined the queue to purchase tickets for the 8.00am departure to Huancayo at 3,300 metres in the An...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

What Are They Hiding?

Submitted to Contest #300

Pareidolia-the phenomenon of seeing familiar objects or faces in random cloud formations. That's a nice sentiment but I don't believe a word of it and this is why. I've seen the things that are hidden in the clouds. Mysterious things. Obvious things... people, history, animals. Scenes from another realm perhaps. There's a whole world up there in those clouds that we know nothing about and I've only gotten glimpses through my camera's eye.I wonder why I'm called to take pictures of certain clouds because in reality I don't find something i...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Cove That Held Me

Submitted to Contest #300

Some places you don't find—you claim. I was twelve when I claimed Pirate's Cove, Corona del Mar, California. A narrow inlet carved by time and tide, hidden between jagged cliffs and the restless Pacific. Today it's tamed—concrete steps with iron rails guiding the descent, the rocks worn from too many feet, beach towels, bold and bright, strewn like markers across the once-empty sand. But back then, the Cove was raw, sheltering, alive. A place the wind couldn't find. A place a child like me—lean, angry, light on her feet—could disappear into ...

9 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Dreamland

Submitted to Contest #300

Note: This story is based on a real place, and a real event. People and animals tragically die. Reader discretion is advised for this reason. Dreamland had to be the most magical place on Earth. At the very least the most magical place in America. People traveled from far and near to come and see the wonders it held behind its entrance, guarded by a great stone angel whose wings became the arch in which you entered through. Once inside, the wonders spread out before you, and seemed to go for miles. You could go to Venice and ride in a gondo...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Where the Water Waits

Submitted to Contest #300

Where the Water WaitsMost people, if you asked them, would say their favorite place was somewhere warm—somewhere bright. A beach, maybe, with white sand and gold pouring from the sky. But she was different.She never came for the sun. Never for the sand.She came for the hush.At first glance, she looked like the others. Towel slung over one arm. Sunglasses perched precariously atop her windblown hair. Her feet pressed tentative prints into the damp morning shore, erasing themselves as quickly as they appeared. To a stranger, she was just anoth...

13 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Where the Walls No Longer Stand

Submitted to Contest #300

My hands glided over the soft, cotton sheets, erasing the ripples and imperfections. The hand-sewn quilt lay bunched at my feet, providing a thin, loving layer of protection between my daughter and the shiny, wooden floor. Sarah sat in the middle of the lumpy quilt, her delicate fingers weaving through a row of shoelaces that peeked out from under the bed, calling her away from me into a world without windows.I sank to my knees and wrapped my arms tightly around her, my voice feebly speaking the words I had rehearsed a hundred times."Sarah, ...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The forgotten kingdom of Bhutan

Submitted to Contest #300

My identity: I am Raven-Wolf, a High-Princess of the druids-Blood Hunter, Cleric, with long, vibrant blue-green cascade of my hair flowed down my back, a stark contrast to my pale skin and the striking purple-hour-glass eyes that glowed with an almost ethereal light. Clothing; an armoured leather gown, leather native boots, hooded-crown, purple-green cloak, feather-pen with leather covered scrolls, bow-with arrows, satchel made with rawhide, magical supplies, short-blades, and dark-shifter, dark-vision, flight, poison-skin, mysterious abilit...

7 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Come for the Monkeys, Stay for the Emotional Damage

Submitted to Contest #300

A True Story of an Adventure in Belize After a very mediocre relationship during COVID with a truly uninspiring man named Kyle, whose greatest passion in life is collecting discarded or lost gloves and hats found on the streets of New York. I find myself single, vaccinated, and dangerously susceptible to bad ideas. It isn't my finest moment, and let's be real, no one knows what they are doing during COVID times. Most of these relationships founded during lockdown are purely for emotional survival. "You have to go to Belize," my friend Jenna ...

18 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

The Lost Village of Dunwich – My Story

Submitted to Contest #300

I was nestled on the picturesque Suffolk coast, a thriving medieval town named Dunwich. With my bustling harbour, grand churches, and vibrant market square, I was a beacon of prosperity and a jewel of the East Anglian region. My fate took a tragic turn, and today, I exist only in whispers of waves and fragments of ancient tales. My story is one of glory and sorrow. My strategic location made me a hub for trade and maritime activity, attracting merchants, sailors, and settlers. My formidable walls and fortifications spoke of a place well-def...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.