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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of asian american short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

Asian american Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. What happens when two different sides of the earth are brought together in a community, a family, or even a single person? Our collection of Asian American short stories can give you some ideas.

Asian american Short Stories – Page 2

Missing Leaves

Weekly Contest #342

Bettina Brentano said to Joanna, “ I know of an author you might enjoy hearing. She’s an adoptee like you.”At first Joanna rolled her eyes. Everyone seemed quick to remind her of her origins. Born in Hong Kong to an unmarried waitress, Joanna had been given up for adoption at six weeks and left on the doorsteps of a police station. They had turned her over to one of the royal government’s orphanages. The Poh Leung Kuk had a mere two nurses to take of sixty babies. Their bottles were propped on pillows, and during the day they were tied to ch...

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Ten Lives In Exchange For One

Weekly Contest #342

Shreya is an ardent devotee of a goddess. One day, when Shreya's daughter Ayra commits a sin, the goddess curses her with death within 24 hours. Shreya begs for Ayra's life. The goddess asks Shreya to give her the souls of 10 sinners in exchange for her daughter's life. This means Shreya must kill 10 sinners. Shreya makes a mental note of all the people who wronged her. These are the 10 people:1) Her Mom:Her mom constantly compared her with others and demanded Shreya to be like them. She was never satisfied with Shreya. She used to bully her...

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5000 miles (五千英里)

Weekly Contest #341

Five thousand miles is the kind of number that sounds clean until you try to live inside it. It’s a number you can Google. Taipei to Seattle. The little airplane icon. The curved line across the Pacific that makes the world look smooth, like distance is just geometry. But distance is not geometry. Distance is your mother’s voice arriving half a second late on FaceTime. Distance is “你吃飯了沒?” spoken through a bad connection, and your automatic “吃了” even when you haven’t. Distance is time zones that turn intimacy into scheduling. Five thousan...

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Woodside

Weekly Contest #341

When her prospective lover asked to see New York through her eyes, Rina knew she would have regrets. She didn’t know much about the celebrity sightings on Cornelia Street or the egg bagels tucked away on West 107th. Even if she did, he wouldn’t glean much beyond a Yelp review. That wouldn’t do, not when butterflies hatched from their easy banter and furtive glances, so much so that she wanted him to squeeze her heart. But first, she had to bear her soul. And so, Rina left a voice note with instructions for boarding the Queens-bound seven li...

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Come back soon okay?

Weekly Contest #341

21/05/2019 Dear Alex,I haven't heard from you in a while, I hope your well. Mina's getting better, mum and dad made me move schools to afford her treatment, I'm not mad just sad to leave my friends. Come back soon okay?Love Ji-a 30/05/2019 Dear Alex,I had my first day at school today, it was okay I think I might have made a new friend? she's really nice and funny, she reminds me of you. Mum and dad miss you, I do too. I think we might be getting a cat, I wanted a dog but Omma thinks its too dangerous and it might hurt Mina. Sorry mums just c...

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the present (the point where the past wins its race against time)

Weekly Contest #339

the present (the point where the past wins its race against time) When the yellow yolk of the Sun first touches the horizon in the distance, you flinch as if it touched you instead. You look up, expecting the Sun to be swallowed by the Earth, feeling the yolk burst in your mouth and trickle down your throat in salty wetness, but it lingers. There’s an itch in your throat and you lift your hand to touch it, but it goes away. When you were little, you saw the clouds and imagined tasting them like cotton candy, feeling the wispy strings of suga...

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Secret

Weekly Contest #339

Noodle Delight was a humble restaurant – a decade in business, 3.7 on Google Maps, and not a single day when all the tables were full. It was owned by Mr and Mrs Tsai, an odd couple who seemed only to have each other.Although I worked under them for six years as their sole employee, they never told me how they met. I saw them every day so these sorts of questions, the big ones, were hard to ask. I imagined that they had eloped after some kind of whirlwind romance, forcing them out of China and into a middling Toronto suburb, friendless. Ther...

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No Holding Back

Weekly Contest #338

No Holding Back. The tagline, the parting words, and the lasting message of the book I've just finished, closed, and placed on the shelf where all my books are spines in, edges out. I finally feel like I'm ready to show off my edge, whatever that means. No. Holding. Back.It's new year, new me, baby! That was me almost two years ago, giving the first Fresh Impact interview on the self-help book that changed my life. This year, they're doing the televised grand finale of the social experiment that this book really entails. I mean, it's in the ...

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That's Not What I Meant

Weekly Contest #336

I have knots in my stomach. We were traveling competitively, checking out all the sites, "Taiwandering" from Kaohsiung to Taipei, as well as all the side quests like Jiufen and Xinbeitou, still part of Taipei but so unique that the two villages felt like different parts. Our focus had been laser sharp the last two weeks, and when it was time for dinner, I finally had time to process the enormity of the night ahead. I was meeting a long-lost uncle for the very first time in my entire life. He never even saw me as a child. I already hated my w...

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East 64th Street

Weekly Contest #336

"419 E. 64th street please?" The taxi driver turned his body 180 degrees and looked me in the eye. "You sure?" His concern was more annoying than endearing. "Yes, that's what I said." He shrugged, "If you say so." I was asleep before the cab exited the airport drive. The 7am flight from Boston was a little too early for my liking. I never sleep the night before National Conference and the screaming baby on the flight didn't allow for a nap. "Here we are." My eyes fluttered open. "No, this can't be it.""Ma'am, this is 419 E. 64th street.” The...

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The Biggest Feast

Shortlisted for Contest #333 ⭐️

When I first met Eleni, we were at a dinner party in Chicago, inside a regal-looking gala space, celebrating the opening of the new play. I was a mere background actor. I didn't even have a name credited to me. In fact, I played several characters. I was a town person, the woman in the village, and a dancer. She was a guest of the director. How she was acquainted with Ivan, I can only imagine. That was never revealed to me. But we met and bonded over the food. Neither one of us an introvert; conversation came easily, without walls.They were...

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18 Folds

Weekly Contest #333

She is leaning across the kitchen table, spoon in one hand, the other cupped beneath to catch any drips. Small dumplings swimming in a spice-laced sauce. The steam floats upward in curls. Comfort food is all about perspective. Her crepe-like hands, soft and spotted, shake slightly. I have time to think, “these will be my hands, too.” 30 years from now I will have my mother’s hands. I say, “Mom, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have to go soon.” Just then, I could hear the gentle patter of rain starting outside. The rich sauce pooled, threatening t...

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Scorched Rice

Shortlisted for Contest #333 ⭐️

“It’s burnt.”Of course it is. “It’s because you wait too long”, a reply laced with the tone that only a parent could have toward their child. I follow my father’s hands, worn with years of hard work, as they mix my bowl of bibimbap.“You eat like this. Now the rice will be crispy if you don’t wait too long”. Bibimbap — a Korean dish of rice and spicy mixed vegetables — is not only delicious, but occasionally served in a dolsot, or hot stone bowl. If you wait just long enough — but not too long — the rice at the bottom will have the perfect am...

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Sesame Chicken

Weekly Contest #333

A mother’s love language is in her cooking. A love language I thought were little gestures but as I grow older I’ve come to realize just how not so little these little ways were. Love is in the little triangular cuts that turn apple slices into bunnies. I would chase after them on beds of white porcelain, grabbing them with my grubby fingers and biting into their heads without a second glance. Love is in the time it took to address each slice with an extra couple seconds of love, all but reduced to apple juice in my stomach. Love is in the f...

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With John in the Morning

Weekly Contest #330

I was just finishing the bacon as it sizzled in the cast iron pan my parents had bought in a flea market before I was born. The smell wafted into the high ceilings of the old farmhouse kitchen. It was a big, inviting room with sturdy cabinets hanging on walls that looked like the original wood paneling. Indeed, most of it had been there since my great-grandfather built the kitchen himself to replace the outside cookhouse that had been part of Heart’s Ease since 1885. If you knew where to look, you could still see the faint scratches on the w...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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