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Avery Sparks

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025

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177 Followers
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52 Stories

2042 karma pts

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Reheated Prose

Weekly Contest #339

Content note: sex, drugs, swearing, mental ill health (stress, anxiety, self-image). 7.34pm ‘So Prof M is brandishing his coffee and pronouncing some shit about how this prose only has meaning when you heat it up -’ Simran flailed an imaginary mug at the others: Nevaeh, Austin and Tabby. ‘And we’ve had a term of this now -’ added Nevaeh. Simran continued. ‘He was just pissed off we’re not lapping it up any more.’ ‘I was trying to understand what he was on about,’ admitted Nevaeh. ‘So just out of fucking spite,’ said Simran, ‘he demands ...

24 likes 4 comments 4
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Better (Ltd)

Weekly Contest #338

We begin with a version of the library as it once was, built around a large circular room that is bright white and capped by a dome rising over two storeys. It recalls Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera, but without its eighteenth-century gravitas, its blank walls reaching all the way back beyond that time to antiquity. Any visitors move through the space clockwise, encountering first the desk for issuing books, then, almost back-to-back, returns desk and exit, with the librarians’ area held between them and connected by a third station, for enquirie...

11 likes 7 comments 7
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The Probabilities of Meaning

Weekly Contest #337

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Simone Ridgeway’s No Ordinary Future wins the 2026 University of South London (USL) Prize Born in Hampshire and now living in Glasgow, this is her debut work. As the first winner of its kind, No Ordinary Future builds upon the world established by children’s author David Wainwright in The Ordinal (1994). It was published sequen...

17 likes 8 comments 8
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The Fifth Treatise of a Scurvy Cur, 1747

Winner of Weekly Contest #336 🏆

An introduction to the collection as presented by The British Library, 3 January, 2026. Captain Judah Lind’s diary entries have been an object of some historical interest since their composition in 1747. They tell the story of a minor yet highly consequential moment of discord in British naval history, and the enduring mystery which followed thereafter. For over two-hundred and fifty years, the same question has occupied the imagination and official enquiry: what was the fate of Fabian Calloway? Following this voyage of HMS Rival, this mys...

85 likes 58 comments 58
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The Dull Man and the Sea

Weekly Contest #335

For the past thirty years, there had been only one way Barry began his New Year, and that was stark bollock naked in the cold, cleansing sea. It was a pilgrimage he took after Christmas, in the betwixtmas, or the Crimbo limbo, or however else you wanted to call that uneasy time that bridged the old and new. The day after Christmas, come hell or high water, he’d sling his tent on his back and set out on the week’s walk between home and his customary ablution spot. Then each New Year’s Day, on the secluded cliffside pitch, he’d emerge at sunr...

32 likes 21 comments 21
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The Tale of Jenny Quickfingers and the Help-Glass

Weekly Contest #334

Once upon a time, there was a hardworking tailor who lived in a tiny cottage with his twelve children. The story is not about him, but we begin with him nonetheless. The man’s wife had died in most unfortunate circumstances, and the poor fellow toiled day and night so he could feed their dozen hungry mouths. He looked after his children in much the same fashion as before his wife’s untimely passing, leaving the eldest to care for the youngest, though he took care to tutor each of them in the art of tailoring, and on sight, the children seeme...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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Wild One

Weekly Contest #333

Content notice: swearing and sex ‘Naturally, we have placed some specimens here which could harm, or even kill you, if improperly handled,’ Guy said, with a wink. Ottilie, Crispin and Jase all nodded knowingly, as if a statement followed by a wink set the whole thing out in black and white. I don’t do ambiguous statements, and dishy though Guy - our Chief Forager - may be, I wasn’t letting that one slip by. ‘What is that, a joke?’ I said, never one to mince my words. Ottilie and Crispin startled, probably didn't expect an oik like me on ...

22 likes 6 comments 6
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The Political Weather

Weekly Contest #332

She knew Storm Justina was due to batter the city that day, but some appointments cannot be missed. Today is both hell and high water. The steps from the metro are slick, the handrail running with rivulets. Grey cascades from the sky in layers. Delays, delays, delays on the station’s tannoys, and every passenger seems clouded with fury and foreboding. She steps out into the street, blinking through what feels like a wall of water. The rain hammers so steadily it flattens every other sound into one continuous rush, allowing nothing distinct...

17 likes 10 comments 10
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Frostbitten

Weekly Contest #331

Romy awoke to a sting as sharp as a cold snap - her arms shot out, shoving a box of complimentary Ginseng Zing Zen Bars off the desk and ejecting them across the atrium floor. ‘Oww…’ She rubbed the back of her head, turning. A young woman, smiling, dropped a damp towel back into the guests’ discard box. ‘Gross, Bethany. That could be anyone's.’ ‘Even your biggest fan.’ She mimed a pointy chin. Romy's eyes widened. ‘Ice bath guy.’ ‘Sorry, would you rather I left you out cold on the reception desk?’ Bethany asked, picking a bar out of a ...

24 likes 9 comments 9
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Here There

Weekly Contest #330

A mirror narrative HERE Can't be helped. You're born where you're born. But there's always been a piece missing that can't be excavated. The hand that mum held while we walked through neat little shops, dressed up like a character from a children’s book, all buttoned up and proper. Our ten fingers, interlocked, much too neat. You can’t hold on forever. I always knew I'd leave and never come back. I’ve waited too long already. Say goodbye to this small cathedral city. Home, only to my family. It sits almost in another time, miles and ages ...

15 likes 8 comments 8
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My Grandma the Soul-Sucker

Weekly Contest #329

Grandma was a demon. A fire-and-brimstone demon. And that soul-sucker waited until her dying breath to sign over her dirty work to me. I spread the picnic blanket out in front of the grave. ELIZABETH CAPRICORN Our arse-kicking angel December 7th, 1986 - October 1st, 2003 Someone in the street nearby shouted. The sound jumped the wall, and I nearly knocked over the glass vial delicately balanced in front of me. I snatched it upright - I was not getting blood on this blanket. Again. Not even this time - the last time. Now, when Grandma was...

20 likes 4 comments 4
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A Matter of Time

Winner of Weekly Contest #328 🏆

Hey. My Mum’s dying. Wanna date me? Yeah, it’s not one I’d start with either. So I haven’t. Mum told me, anyway, not to put my life on hold just because she’s ill. She said Tam, the ravens of memory fly around the universe, they don’t roost in the tower. She’s always coming out with stuff like that. Mama looked at her, said she hoped the ravens of memory would still be interested in Sunday dinner. Mama carried me, gave birth to me, and neither of us deal in myths. Although, after sixteen years of Mum’s bedtime chats, daily affirmations and...

142 likes 98 comments 98
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Nine Lives

Weekly Contest #327

Content notice: allusion to fertility issues. First life: Dubrovnik, Croatia ‘It’s going to jump!’ Indi gasped. Alfie stopped her, one hand on her waist, other on her navel. She shivered. ‘Don’t run, you’ll scare it.’ They both looked over to the cat’s landing-place - from one side of the old city walls to the other, a hand-span’s strip which tipped over into a death-drop canvas of terracotta rooftops. ‘It’s got this,’ he said. ‘Cats know what they’re about. That’s their thing.’ The cat paused, tail twitching, assessing the gap. Then it...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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The Trumpet and Flame

Weekly Contest #326

A gale of laughter went racing up the high street - mirth and mania all in one - the sound of it catching, lighting, gas to flame. Anneka and her friend Zara, red mouths burning under amber lights, a neon trumpet blazing yellow above them, an ambulance flashing its blue-white siren in the opposite direction, the core of the heat. A bouncer flinched, poor man, standing guard at the pub to which they stumbled - The Trumpet and Flame. ‘You're late, ladies.’ He barred the way. ‘Show’s almost starting.’ ‘Give over, Umar, it's my birthday,’ said...

22 likes 3 comments 3
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Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

Weekly Contest #325

‘My word everybody, there’s a special energy in here tonight.' Simon heard himself say the words. In reality, he was entirely focussed on channelling his wince-inducing boredom into a middle-distance stare that just happened to fall on the clock. He appeared to be tuning into eternity, rather than counting every second. Ten down. Five thousand, three hundred and ninety to go. Once more, with feeling. Come on, Simon. ‘Those of you who know me will have heard this before,’ he began. ‘But, as ever, our ability to connect with the beyond depe...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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