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
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

150+ Creative nonfiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. The creative nonfiction stories on this page deliver exactly what it says on the tin: true stories told in weird and wonderful ways.

Creative nonfiction Short Stories – Page 6 of 10

This isn't what I signed up for

Submitted to Contest #336

CW: Domestic abuse. Over twenty-one years I was in what should have been my best time of my life. I meet a nice man named Karl through a college buddy of mine. He was fresh out of the military and physically fit. I thought that he might be a good catch as I was kind of seeing someone through my work. The other guy, Paul was only interested in being just friends. But, I desired more than that. I wanted to experience motherhood. At that time, it wasn't possible with Paul as he couldn't have children. Now, Karl on-the-other-hand, seemed to be i...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Hedda and Henry

Submitted to Contest #336

“Good morning, my name is Hedda Martens. I have an unusual request; do you have a moment?” asked a woman on the phone with a slight German accent. Intrigued, I said, “Yes, of course.” She urgently wanted to speak with Henry Bawnik, a local Holocaust survivor. Hedda was a German WWII refugee (not Jewish,) living with her daughter south of Buffalo. She recently had read Henry Bawnik’s Holocaust survivor testimony in the local newspaper and realized she and Henry had a shared history and were now living only a few miles apart. As the executiv...

8 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

2002: Pastghanistan

Submitted to Contest #336

CW: This story contains depictions of war, civilian casualties, and the trauma of military occupation. 2002: Pastghanistan By W Goodwin War-tuned vehicles rumbled out of Kabul city every day. I really wanted to ride with those badass guys and cover the action, but they thought I needed to work up to it, prove myself, show this woman reporter was up to the rigors of hanging with the soldiers. To start, they assigned me to the city, but I threw a tantrum and got placed with a ‘presence patrol’ consisting of a couple of low-key civilian cars...

7 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Path

Submitted to Contest #336

The Path I raced home from class, pretending the traffic lights mattered more than the house waiting for me. Five points for green. Minus ten for red. The train was a guaranteed loss. I kept a running tally in my head, the numbers clicking forward like a slot machine that might pay out calm if I won.If I focused hard enough on the math, I didn’t have to think about what came next.The game started months ago, sometime after I moved in. Back when I still believed that if I kept things organized—emotionally, spatially, internally—I could preven...

13 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Exile in the Wasteland

Submitted to Contest #336

He was remanded to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the Criminal Insane in Washington D.C. Found guilty of treason after being captured by American soldiers in Italy in 1945, Ezra Pound was translating ancient Chinese poetry when I came to visit him in September 1957. My visit would include a letter signed by some of the most talent literary minds of the time such as Robert Frost, Carl Sandberg, E. E. Cummings, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Earnest Hemmingway, and myself, Thomas Sterns Elliot, asking for his immediate release from the hospita...

11 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

A Future Greater than this World

Submitted to Contest #336

This story deals with the theme of execution. “I am certain that is Charette, General Travot.” “How do you know it is not just another ‘Charette’?” “All the fake ones are gone already, sir. Just trust me. It’s him. . . What did I tell you? I know his face.”“He looks dead.” “No, sir, he has only fainted; I hit him on the shoulder and head, but not fatally. It’s him! It’s him! Let the whole nation celebrate, for today we have captured the most hunted man in the country!” — “Yes. . . I am Charette. . . I will surrender to Travot, him alone— he ...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Price to Belong

Submitted to Contest #336

In Big River, the name DeYoung didn’t just belong to a family; it belonged to the geography. It was etched into the cornerstone of the hospital’s waiting room, embossed on the stationery of the family’s business, and whispered with a mixture of reverence and resentment in the reformed churches in town. To marry Sam DeYoung was, in the eyes of the city, like being knighted. But as I stood in the center of "Stevensons," the town’s most exclusive bridal boutique, I didn’t feel like royalty. I felt like a specimen under a microscope.“You’re not ...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Betrayal of Mind

Submitted to Contest #336

September 12, 2022 Whenever I would go into her house, which was several times a day, Mom was busy. Sorting mail, vacuuming, cleaning her shower, making a meal or cleaning up after it, organizing the pantry, cleaning the fridge. One afternoon, I watched and listened as she sorted through the condiments on the refrigerator door. “This can stay here.” She said, moving a bottle from one shelf to another. “The cider vinegar comes here. That’s not what I meant. You don't even have to go back in here now because they're...

8 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Long Summer

Submitted to Contest #336

The Long Summer Annie - Remember when we were eating cherries right in these two chairs?Theo - Yeah, how could I forget? I mean... I isn't as if you didn't scare me saying my belly is full of worms… Annie - Ha! I liked doing that! I mean you were so little and stupid. You used to believe every little thing I used to say. I mean… I even remember you throwing up.Theo - Gross! But yeah! Did happen!Annie - God, how we laughed that day! I still remember, it was the beginning of our summer holidays.Theo - Yeah… That's what I remember as being the...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Another Assignment on Earth

Submitted to Contest #336

This wouldn’t be my first rodeo on Earth. In fact, I am a seasoned traveler of this planet. It is one of the least interesting, most disgusting, and deeply disconnected planets a soul can choose to run around in wearing a meat suit. I know I sound arrogant right now, but some of us have better things to do in the cosmos than start over from human scratch—as a baby, wiggling our way into adulthood, only to be programmed by a parasitic society and later forced to deprogram ourselves just to remember why we came. What a colossal waste of time, ...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Stuck

Submitted to Contest #335

Awareness fills out my body like warm honey, smooth and sticky into every limb and digit. Yes, that is my hand. It is on the counter. Yes, that is my knee. It is bent over the edge of the couch. We move together, the honey and I, as I braid my hair, as I walk to work. It sits behind my eyes and colors the leaves on the trees, the bricks on the buildings, the robin on the sidewalk. Wind tickles my face, and I feel the strands of my hair dancing across my nose. I am here, right here. Sometimes, the honey flows backward toward my core. My skin ...

12 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

The bluest oceans

Submitted to Contest #335

Trigger warning: This story touches on issues of substance abuse, mental health, suicide and self-harm. Time heals all wounds, but it also takes a chunk out of your lifetime and—please excuse my French—age is a bitch. Sure, I have the wisdom of experience from more than just one life lived, but I am now effectively residing in the biological body of a worn-out g-string.They say hindsight is always 20/20. Fair enough. I have been through enough life lessons that, if given the chance to talk sense into my younger self, I would likely take a sl...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

It Hurts to Forget and It Hurts To Remember

Submitted to Contest #335

“Her skin was so pale. Our Catherine. She used to frolic around our patio every morning. It would drive you so crazy. Wouldn’t it?”“Pardon me?” I waited for a response.Her skin creased oh so gently as her lips pursed, “Not you, honey. I’m talking to Jed.” She turned and faced a barren table in a café on Kennedy Street.“Excuse me, but there’s…”“I’m sorry. I’m having a conversation right now. Give me a moment, dear.” She turned away yet again. Her wrinkled eyes, which have witnessed more life than I could even imagine living, lit up as she con...

12 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Fire on Sadogashima

Submitted to Contest #335

CW: Natural disaster For Reedsy by Jan. 2Write a story where something doesn’t go according to plan. Fire on Sadogashima 1. “The fire god, although destructive by his very nature, and feared by mortals, is not evil and does what he can for mankind, providing them with light, warmth, a means of cooking, and the heat for forging weapons and tools. However, if the people affront him by neglecting his worship, he has been known to burn cities to the ground.” (Wikipedia) 2. Sado is an island off the north-west coast of Honshu Island. In Japanes...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

All's Well that Ends Well

Submitted to Contest #336

All's Well that Ends Well “It is such a nice warm day. Hey, would you like lunch now?”“Me?”“Yes you, well both of you.”“I just heard the news. That guy you are talking about with the hunches, what’s his name? He was killed two nights ago. No, I do not have a hunch about who killed him do you?”“Yes.”“I’m making sandwiches. Would you like Turkey or ham?”“Who killed him? Do you know? You say you have a hunch? Would you please come closer so I can hear you?”“Yes. I’d like a turkey one.”“It’s not nice to call a murder victim a turkey.”“What?”“I s...

5 likes 1 comment 1
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.