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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2025
Submitted to Contest #335
The scarecrow stood at the eastern edge of the lower field, where the earth gave up being soft. It had been there longer than anyone living could remember. The post was oak, darkened by years of weather, sunk deep enough that frost never lifted it. The body was a sack once filled with chaff, now slack and bowed, its weight pulling against the nails. Its coat had been a man’s coat at some point, brown wool rubbed to a napless silk by wind and rain. The hat had no crown left, only a rim, tilted and uneven. Birds did not settle on it. They pass...
Submitted to Contest #333
The Vessel Lewis stepped out for air into a night without witness. The scent of rain lingered in the stillness. He had spent the day at the print warehouse, running folding machines, cutters, and presses fed by ink. His hands still carried a pale smear of toner. His shoulders ached with the long day, and he paused in the dark to steady himself. The work had worn him sheer and left him wanting something he could not name. He lit a cigarette and leaned against a tree across from the alley. Smoke curled from his fingers in thin threads. A figu...
Submitted to Contest #332
The drought had worn the world down to thirst and dust. The house drew the heat of summer into its bones until the boards gave off a faint sour warmth like old breath. Even her sleep carried its barren weight. Her dreams were dry and colorless and broke apart like the soil outside. Hands clawed upward in slow, brittle motions, fingers white, uncurling like hungry roots before they crumbled. The cracks widened. Gaunt faces pressed through, gasping for water that never came. When she tried to turn away, the faces followed, their hollow eyes fi...
Winner of Contest #331 🏆
The first snow began in the small hours, noiseless, without ceremony. By the time Ruth woke, the world at the window had turned to winter. The sky pressed low over the mountain bowl, a porcelain hush of blue shadows. She took her time to sit up. Her joints felt the weather before she did. A dull ache in her knees and an old pain in her collarbone reminded her of a fall on ice.The window fogged with her breath as she leaned close. Below the cabin, the slope dropped away into fir and aspen, their trunks lifting out of the new snow. The creek i...
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