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Bruce Powley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2025

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4 Stories

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Mail Order Bride

Weekly Contest #337

My second great-grandfather, William James Powley, was born in 1849 in Auckland, New Zealand, and at 19, he married Letitia Murphy, who was a lot younger, from Ireland, in 1868.We know through stories that were handed down to our family. That Letitia was a mail-order bride, and there's nothing wrong with that. We were told that they were a loving, caring family, and Letitia educated her children and family about the hardship and starvation caused by the Irish potato disease called a blight, and how badly the English Army was treating the Iri...

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Small Imperfection, And Quiet Regrets

Weekly Contest #336

There was a New Zealand entertainer named Jack, whose manager had organized a short tour from Auckland to Wellington, performing with small local bands at theatres, lively pubs, and a couple of upmarket outdoor events at wineries.Jack was a stand-up comedian with a guitar who could also play serious music and had a suitcase full of songs, jokes, and yarns about small-town life, stubborn dogs, and the awkwardness of everyday life. He wasn't that famous, but he was your mate down the road at the pub who just so happened to be on telly last wee...

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A Senior's Journey Of Finding Love In The Digital Age

Weekly Contest #335

Imagine a senior person who, when they were in school, there were no computers or cell phones, and was trying to keep up and learn new technology. People were quietly thinking that this person had an intellectual disability. And yet this same person had run three successful businesses without a computer or cell phone. It's not that this person didn't want to learn something new, and wanted to stay in the past. The world is changing by the minute, and if we don't change with it, we become extinct like a dinosaur. But there are a few things wi...

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The Price Of A Day Out

Weekly Contest #333

In a small suburb of Auckland during the 1990s, four young ladies in their twenties were so-called "living the dream," and married to husbands with decent incomes, with some homes with a sea view. This very old suburb is mainly middle-class, with one foot in the past, and one foot in money-eyed beginnings. A lot of people had gone to school together and, for some reason, stayed in the same area, so most people naturally knew each other.Two of the young ladies were real social climbers on a grand scale, with wardrobes that were bursting with ...

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