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

1220+ Urban Fantasy Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From vampires at the bar to werewolves around the corner, our collection of urban fantasy stories will bring the magical into everyday life.

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The Best Urban Fantasy Short Stories

Vampires, werewolves, and faeries roaming around in unnoticed corners of your city? Oh my! That’s exactly what you’ll find in urban fantasy stories, one of the most exciting fantasy subgenres right now. Urban fantasy takes our real world (generally, a gritty city or an urban setting) and infuses magic into it in the most wondrous ways, daring us to imagine a place in which you can turn the corner and run into a vampire smoking a pipe in a common alley. 

Even more excitingly, just like the restless cities that they’re set in, urban fantasy is still growing and experimenting. Though many people associate urban fantasy with paranormal creatures, this subgenre explores plenty of other themes, including noir and police procedurals. One thing is constant across all of these urban fantasy stories, though: they’ll keep you riveted up until the final page.  

Looking for some of the best urban fantasy stories?

Welcome to Reedsy’s page of the best urban fantasy short stories on the Internet! All of these stories were submitted to Reedsy’s weekly writing competition, and are now available for you to read. At the top of the page, you’ll find the stories that were shortlisted by our panel of judges, representing the cream of the crop. 

And while we can’t promise that you’ll meet a mysterious creature from the seething underbelly of the city on this page, you might just encounter a new favorite author or two as you read their short stories. Don’t forget to click ‘follow’ when you do encounter them — you won’t want to miss out on any of their future urban fantasy stories! You can also check out some of our all-time favorite stories from the contest in the latest issue of our literary magazine, Prompted — it's available to download for free.