Stories - Long Story Short Award - 2022 - page 15 - all works

Creative Nonfiction

1 min

Writing is Like Unraveling a Knot

Writing is like unraveling a knot. It always seems to turn out that the twistiest jumbles are easiest to pick apart, while the simplest snarls morph into a recursion of stuck-fast loops in loops. To ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

Ständchen

Eve Iyengar

His left hand reached for the door handle while his right wrapped around my own. The room he led me into appeared simultaneously empty and full, bright and dark. Through an open window I smelt the ... [+]

Poetry

1 min

Evelyn

Eve Iyengar

From your soft pink cheeks,
rose gardens will bloom

and from the blue in your eyes, ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

2 min

Bugs

Sam Susan

I remember being a little girl going to the department store with my mom; all the girls' clothing was as expected: frilly and pink, embroidered with butterflies, usually itchy and always sparkly ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

Pruning

Hannah Erlbacher

It's okay to rip flowers out
and to set fire to vines,
to pluck petals off without
counting to ... [+]

Poetry

1 min

Laughing

Emily Tsai

My mind is blank.
My face is fuzzy.
I'm dying, and it's so funny.
Please, sir,
Make a ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

MaFille

Tsz Yui Leung

Dang it. I think I am lost, where am I heading to? Aha, I must be on my way to visit my relatives. That's fine, I will ask the gentleman who is now coming my way, "excuse me, do you know a house? It ... [+]

Poetry

2 min

different bones

Caro Ingle

then:

one day i'll be reborn.

into a skin that has never been touched by you,
into ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

Please, Just Let Her Walk Away

Hannah Venable

She hated the way he walked.
She despised it.
Hands in pockets.
Shoulders slack.
Walking leisurely as if he didn't have a care in the world.
He had places to be.
She knew it.
He ... [+]

Poetry

1 min

The Red Forest

Kirk Saylor

The molten sun melts like liquid gold over the small town. Scattered
Homes with curtains pulled ... [+]

Poetry

1 min

What She Made

Christopher C

She always stood beside me
But I never made a sound
Why stay with her, they say?
Why bothe ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Elysian Ring

Paul Guajardo

Erevnitís studied the gold band that sat before him; for a ring that possessed the power of a God, it was quite plain. The fabled Elysian Ring looked worthy of a local goldsmith, not the Vulcan of ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Right Person Wrong Time

Kat Vanbourgondien

Her POV:

Right person, wrong time was a bitch.
There he was, her best friend of the entire world, speaking in low tones with his girlfriend. They were perfect for one another. Togethe ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

A Forgotten Face

Jacob Williams

He had seen her before, he was sure of it. Perhaps he had even known her name once though he could not now seem to remember. Without really understanding why, he smiled at the face before him and was ... [+]

Poetry

1 min

Polytheism

Jo Snow

I woke to the hum of Tallulah's red Ford
Ranger in the driveway of my home. That morning, ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

4 min

A Female Server

Rachel Rosenblatt

I was sixteen years old the first time a man told me that I was pretty enough to be a server.
I was just a host, but a good one. One of the best, which isn't even bragging, because being a host ... [+]

Short Fiction

2 min

The Knickknack Tree

Allison Judd

It was sunny outside. Bright, almost blinding. Oliver sulked and sweated on his way home from work. His car had broken down earlier that morning, so he had walked the arduous one mile to the nearest ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

2 min

Gold Ribbons

Allison Judd

My hair started falling out about three weeks into treatment. I expected clumps (for the doctors, websites, and survivors said, "expect clumps"), and I imagined my hair falling out in neatly packaged ... [+]