Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Samantha Maris

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2025

Stories
Comments
Library
6 Followers
14 Following

7 Stories

98 karma pts

?

Cadence and the Marine - She broke training to save her person

Weekly Contest #357

Cadence and The Marine Cadence of Moonstone, a PTSD Dog who broke the rules to save her person.As told to Samantha MarisWritten by Sam Maris with Cadence’s ApprovalTW: Gunfire, mentions of sexual assault, suicide and killing My ears feel the air shift a nanosecond before the sound of the violent CRACK of a high-powered round reaches me. A pressure snap that causes the nerves in my ears to stand at attention. Instinct takes over, and I launch myself at Taylor, knocking her to the tile floor and covering her body with mine.Another CRACK, as mo...

2 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Bad Mother Funeral

Weekly Contest #355

Chapter 1 “Are you family? I need to know where to seat you.” The man eyes me like he thinks he may have seen me on the wanted posters at the post office.“Could you just put me at the back?” He nods but still looks at me suspiciously. I’m sure with a population of less than a thousand, this man probably knows every soul who lives in Bobo.“You look like her, but I don’t know you.” Apparently, he has concluded that I am an outsider and does not want me to look anything like his fine townsfolk. He seats me in the back row. I am still unsure ab...

7 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Match Box

Weekly Contest #354

Match Box Chapter 1My leather trolley bag followed like a puppy on a leash as I fast walked the concourse at Louis Armstrong Airport. I had to get out of town. I couldn’t stand the thought of facing her, or worse, them.My red hair was easy to spot, so I bought a cloth gaiter at the airport and pulled the black-and-gold colors of the New Orleans Saints, with a fleur-de-lis logo, over my head until my hair was no longer visible.My former Executive Chef was at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the San Diego Gaslamp Quarter. If he didn’t have a j...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Ahuizotl

Weekly Contest #353

Chapter 1This lake has been my home for as long as the gods have existed. I was created for them, as a messenger. “The Snatcher” is the name on the tongues of the uninitiated. The fear I bring is older than their villages, older than any of the new languages. The water’s memory is long; so is mine. Most days pass in the slow rhythm of currents and silt, the pulse of fish, the drifting songs of reeds. But sometimes—rarely—the lake stirs with a different kind of presence. A brightness. A soul that hums like a harp chord struck by lightning.Tha...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

It Ain't Easy Being Orange

Weekly Contest #352

I used to be bolder than others. Even the boldest of the bold could not eclipse my brilliance.I don’t mean I was unapproachable; I was and am as sweet as oranges, and it is easy to enjoy me wherever I am used. But I used to find it easier for people not to judge me. I represented living sciences, such as cooking with an open flame. I was the color of the Denver Broncos, of Texas Longhorns, and sunsets that made people pull over on the side of the road to stare. I was the glow in a jack‑o’-lantern and the color of the pumpkin, the zest of a ...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Jasper Juniper Titmouse

Weekly Contest #345

Samantha Maris sam@sammaris.com About 2,000 words Jasper Juniper Titmouse by Samantha Maris Chapter 1Chapter 1Rainy days were the universe’s personal attack on Jasper Juniper Titmouse. Jasper’s family, “The Titmouses,” were tiny. So small that rainy days were dangerous, the weather forcing them captive in their home for fear of being pummeled into the ground like a stake at some of the human campsites prevalent around their home in the Northern California forest near the Great Basin. So, JJ, as his friend...

3 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Cost of a Lie

Weekly Contest #344

Cost of a Lieby SAMANTHA MARIS Chapter 1“Mom!” Kira called out in a voice pitched higher than her normal alto. Her mother, standing twenty feet away at the entrance to the garage mused to herself how rich her daughter’s voice had gotten once she matured to the ripe age of seventeen.“What?” Darlene attempted to imitate Kira’s excited pitch but that wasn’t possible any longer.“I found a box and I want to go through it but…” Kira’s voice became less confident as she looked up from the box she was cradling and met her mother’s eyes. Darlene cau...

7 likes 3 comments 3
Read story