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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2025
Submitted to Contest #314
Let No Man Steal Thy Paper Crown It was the hottest day of the year, and we still had to wear pantyhose. I didn’t have any of my own, so I had to wear Grandma Winnie’s. Mama said next summer she might let me shave my legs, but until then, I just prayed they wouldn’t fall down in front of the congregation, like they did last time. That was the summer Granddaddy got called to preach back in our hometown after Uncle Billy retired. So we moved back to Crooked Creek, into the yellow house with the haint blue porch and the wasp nest in the mailbox...
Submitted to Contest #313
Are You There, God? It's Me, Charmaine It all started in a little salon tucked between a dance studio and an insurance agency in a small town in Tennessee. On one side, you could hear the constant tap-tap-tap of tiny shoes practicing for recital season. On the other, someone was always trying to file a claim for a fender bender in the Kroger parking lot. In the middle sat Charmaine, wrapped in foil like a baked potato, her platinum hair glinting under the fluorescents while my sister-in-law Megan muttered that if I ever dyed Charmaine’s hair...
⚠️ Content Warning:This story contains themes of child captivity, emotional manipulation, and psychological trauma. While there is no graphic violence or explicit content, readers may find the material distressing. The Quiet Game The numbers blink at her in blue: 111. That’s the only time they’re allowed to play. Nobody ever says who made the rule, but she knows 111 means play time. She counts the clicks of the clock. One, two, three… She always stops at eleven. Then she starts again. One, two, three… She doesn’t know why. It just feels ri...
The Pilot’s Locked and So Is the Casket I truly believe that only my family could turn a funeral into a tactical operation involving oven mitts, a Maltese in a tuxedo, and the only car key to a Honda Pilot locked in with the body. It all started the night before the service. We were eight hours from home at the family church, Crooked Creek Baptist, red carpet and all, the kind that’s so old it feels sacred and sticky at the same time. The visitation was winding down, and folks were drifting out into the parking lot, swapping casseroles and s...
Submitted to Contest #311
MOM, NOT MOM I came home on a Tuesday, three months after the accident. The house looked exactly like it had the day I left it. My school bag was still by the door, the Diet Coke can with the straw still poking out still on the sink, the clothes I’d tossed down the stairs in a rush still hanging over the stair rail. Everything was the same as it was when I left it. Everything except me. Tim wheeled me into my mom’s bedroom, I couldn’t get up the stairs to mine, and turned on the TV like that would help. “There ya go!” he said and went straig...
Sacred and SoiledBy: Christie LeighIt started like all the worst stories do-with a shout from the other room: “I’ve got to poop!”“Granddaddy, NO!” I screamed. “Please don’t do this to me.”“It’s not safe to hold back when you’re old!” he barked.I ran into the kitchen gagging. “Ewwwww.” I grabbed the phone and called my Mom. “Mom! You’ve got to come home NOW!”“What’s wrong? Oh my God. Is Ginger ok? What happened? Is she breathing? Is she alive?”“Ginger is fine,” I said. “I am not. Granddaddy said he’s gonna poop! You’ve got to come home!”“Come...
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