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#142 Librarian Love

April 16th is National Librarian Day in the US! You may know your local librarian as the person who helps you find your next great read, but librarians accomplish a lot that we may never notice — acquiring new books, helping patrons conduct research, and working with schools or other community groups. 


Ultimately, a librarian’s main job is to continue democratizing information so everyone can have access to whatever it is they want to learn. Pretty cool!


We believe librarians are massively important public servants in any thriving community, so to celebrate them we’re inviting you to write a story based on one of these five prompts:

🥇 Winner

What You Can Do With Your Book

Winner of Weekly Contest #142 🏆

You present me with a gift bag as if legions of angels will descend, trumpeting your thoughtfulness in remembering my [insert celebratory event here]. I’m gracious, of course. You shouldn’t have!And I mean that. You shouldn’t have. Because now you are stepping over the line. We are simply:co-workers mothers with children at the same school neighbors with dogs old-friends-from-college, or spouses-of-old-friends-from-college. Regardless, we are not on gift-bagging terms. Especially the kind you immediate...

306 likes 273 comments 273
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⭐️ Shortlisted

This week's prompts

Start your story with someone being given a book recommendation.

– 33 stories

Write a story about a librarian that doesn’t fit into the common librarian stereotypes.

– 61 stories

Write about a character on the hunt to solve a mystery who uses their local library (or librarian) as a source of information.

– 25 stories

Write a story that includes one character reading aloud to another.

– 28 stories

Write about somebody who likes to work in silence.

– 25 stories

Stories

Vigil

Weekly Contest #142

Candlelight gleams on the wooden rafters overhead as the chanting of The Exsultet fills the darkened church. Then the voices of the choir swell in multiple responsorial Psalms, and readings are intoned as flames flicker atop the white wax tapers the congregation hold in their hands. A quiet thrill goes through me as I listen to the first chapter of the book of Genesis - “And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.” Though I can hardly see it in the sepul...

19 likes 41 comments 41
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Returning Home

Weekly Contest #142

Returning Home People will think I’m crazy if I tell them what I am about to do. That would even include my husband. He understands a lot about me, but not in matters such as this. One day – maybe soon, he will. The house we are thinking of buying is just what we want in so many ways.  It’s old enough to be classy, but not so old that it needs or will soon need repairs done. It’s in the countryside, near town, so we won’t feel crowded like in the apartment we live in now, but still be close to town to easily go to see m...

18 likes 2 comments 2
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The First Five Years

Weekly Contest #142

The First Five Years. That’s what the diner guy said. I mean, he was a bit seedy looking, and he had a gross mustard stain on the belly of his shirt, but what did I have to lose? So here I am at the bookstore looking up this random title. Ok, here it is! Wait a minute. This little girl on the cover kind of looks like I did- but only kind of- when I was small. I check out at the counter with a young boy of about seventeen. He’s got shoulder-length wavy brown hair and a mouth full of braces. I think he’s the owner’s nephew or something. Anyway...

17 likes 13 comments 13
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Shhhhh!

Weekly Contest #142

Shhhhh! They called it spring. Intellectual crocuses sent shoots peeking through encrusted snow. After years of unrest followed by martial law, curfews began to be relaxed. The generation who came of age during the darkness began to explore the potential offered by their rediscovered liberties. The young man known as ‘Roach’ entered the library. Though warm outside, he wore a hoody pulled over his shaven head. He stepped to the counter and asked for Twigs. From her desk, Madeline looked at him. “Twigs? A book…? Oh, uhm… You mean Dorothy?” ...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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Curse of the Cane Man

Weekly Contest #142

Detective Steve Swanson clips the potted gardenia on his desk, then carefully waters it.            Chief Pasquale Puglisi drops a folder on Steve’s desk. “Something for you to look into besides domestic scuffles.”            Steve opens the folder, gazing curiously at the black and white photograph of a muscular young man with greasy hair, a monobrow, and an uneasy smile.           &...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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Drip, Drip, Drip

Weekly Contest #142

Taps don't drip when you are on the float, a leak comes out but simply pools at the faucet until someone notices the bulb and cleans it up. Physics was funny that way.  Tightening pipes and checking valves is half of your life when you are on an old shuttle barely rated for space flight. The taps weren't the only thing to leak, but they were the only thing that dripped when you were under thrust.  Drip, Drip, Drip. Any leak was louder and faster the higher the burn. Anything close to 1G changed it from individual sounds to an e...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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Can I love you from afar?

Weekly Contest #142

She is a mysterious one. Or so I have heard. They say she hides secrets behind those tortoiseshell rimmed glasses and whispers tales of her past to those who gain her trust. Maybe one day she will trust me.I find her unlike other librarians, usually so strict and hmm how do you put it - simply librarian-like. But this woman is different.She is wearing pants. Soft beige corduroy slacks that flare slightly at the bottom. A loose fitted t-shirt with some brand I don't recognise printed on it. Her feet are clad with leather birkenstocks and a br...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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Silence Is Deafening

Weekly Contest #142

As far back as any of the scholars had recorded, the Royal Library of Hercynia had always existed. There were simply no reasonable explanations as to when it was built, or by whom. Most theorised that it was built by monstrous slaves once the humans had won the war and laid claim to the fertile land. There were some however that held the belief the library came to be by the very same beings they moved to enslave. History was a fickle thing when written by the victors. Morrigan supposed that if the library had been here first, and the pal...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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Dewey Decimal Disasters

Weekly Contest #142

TO: reports@macroshift.com FROM: smreed@metropol.lib.gov RE: Archivobot Initial Performance Report DATE: January 15, 2029 To Whom It May Concern: Per your company’s request and as required by the terms of our contract in exchange for the preferential, discounted financial terms extended to our library as a governmental entity, I am hereby submitting my first periodic report regarding Archivobot’s performance. I must report that, despite being in only the late experimental phases of its development, Archivobot performed above expectations...

15 likes 12 comments 12
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'The Volcanoes of Iceland'

Weekly Contest #142

‘The Volcanoes of Iceland’By Marcus Newton-Howes, April 2022Based on the Reedsy prompt: Write about a character on the hunt to solve a mystery who uses their local library (or librarian) as a source of information._______Kjartan had been back in Reykjavík for a couple of months, and was only now just settling into home life again. It was 10pm, and as it was winter, this meant it had been dark for quite some time. The kids were both sleeping. The project he’d been overseeing, the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric dam, had been stressfu...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock.

Weekly Contest #142

Cold. With arms wrapped tight about my torso, I attempt to hide the shivers. But I ask myself in the silence of the waiting room, am I shivering from the cold or from nerves? Glancing down, I gawk at the gooseflesh. My eye catches the state of my appearance. At this, I ponder my choice of t-shirt. Wrinkled, a coffee stain near the waistline. When did that happen, I wonder. A sweatshirt would have been better. Or perhaps a more professional outfit to cut down this overwhelming sense of stigma?  Questions flood my mind. Am I sweating? W...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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The Whistler

Weekly Contest #142

 His breath was frosted in the chilly air as he rushed to his campsite; dodging Scouts as they made their way to the dining hall in the exact opposite direction. Everyone was going to eat, but Neil needed to find Thomas.Thomas didn’t show up for anything after Geocaching, not Communications, not First Aid, not even Mining in Society, and he was really excited about that. “Weird, and my dad was a coal miner, so it’ll be interesting to see.”He didn’t get to see, because he never came to the pavilion where they held the merit badge lesson....

15 likes 4 comments 4
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Children of the Earth: Volume in The Book of Evil

Weekly Contest #142

Children of the Earth: Volume in The Book of EvilIt's a book about the history of the world and mankind. Here, read it, see for yourself. But first I'll need to warn you...Evil is unspectacular and always human and shares our bed and eats at our own table.Evil writes these tales in blood and tears, leaving behind devastation and chaos. It inscribes on the tender surface of the human heart and carves into the delicate tissues of the human brain, spreading dissension, fear, and devastation, leaving a trail of shattered lives and broken hearts....

15 likes 11 comments 11
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You Are

Weekly Contest #142

(TW for miscarriage and child death.)Maybe we should play a game. That’s immersive enough, right?A game?Monopoly. Scrabble? Something—I don’t know!Yeah, let’s introduce him to social constructs. He’ll surely understand that.Do you have any better ideas?Well…Oh wow, I love that game!Shut up.Oh! I got it!What—ow! Stop slapping me!What about a guessing game?That could work. Like twenty questions?Right! I’ll go first. Okay, I’m thinking of a person.Um… are they alive?Of course!Are they older than me?I don’t think an age older than you has been r...

15 likes 5 comments 5
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Conan the Librarian

Weekly Contest #142

The world is awash in words, short words and long words, hasty words and well-thought-out words, words that cluster to form books and magazines and all kinds of semi-permanent media. What, then, to read? What teaspoonful to sip at while the tsunami breaks over your head? Behold Conan the Librarian. Conan is ready to recommend what you should read next. He is a librarian par excellence but is most brilliant at recommendations. His spectacles sparkle, his mouth moistens as he matchmakes a reader with what ought to be read. He recommends to an...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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