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Emma Gardner
Bio
Emma Gardner is a classics grad student, an aspiring writer, and a BookToker (@theaceofbooks). She reads 200 books a year.
Stories (4/0)
Crown Him King: Being the Singular Tale of How the Illustrious Kingdom of Snettle-upon-Snee Went Through Four Kings in the Space of a Week
The Pitch Nobody's mourning the death of King Hustlebee III for any of the usual reasons. Weeping fills the streets. Black banners wave from all the windows. Yet Hustlebee III never showed care or compassion for his subjects, and he had the unfortunate habit of finding himself more concerned with the amount of riches in his vault than the abundance of crime on the streets. He was not a particularly great king—or an adequate one, for that matter. Why, then, all this mourning? Why the wailing and gnashing of teeth? Simple. Even though Hustlebee III was a terrible king, Rufus Hustlebee IV, crown prince to Snettle-upon-Snee, is going to do an even worse job than his father.
By Emma Gardner12 months ago in Humor
Hundreds of Fields, Hundreds of Canvases
Paris. 1874. Olivia sits in a field, before a canvas. She has sat in hundreds of fields, before hundreds of canvases, over a period of hundreds of years. By now, the brushstrokes come as easily as breathing: the force of three centuries of habit. But never before has she tried to keep the motions so loose; to lay on the paint so thick and ridged. Never has she aimed to capture the view as her eye sees it, nakedly and without interpretation—in blocks of color and in fleeting impressions of movement.
By Emma Gardner12 months ago in Art
From the Thief to His Daughter. Runner-Up in Micro Heist Challenge.
Dear Isabel, Here's a lie about thieving. You’ve probably heard it before. A man in a suit wants to hang the Mona Lisa on the bare wall of his mansion. So he pulls together his closest friends, and they wine and dine their way into the museum; and elegantly—oh so elegantly—they lift the Mona Lisa from the exhibit. It sits in the mansion for the rest of its cold, still life, surrounded by chandeliers and gold leaf.
By Emma Gardnerabout a year ago in Fiction
Habitus. Runner-Up in Father's Footprint Challenge.
In the memory I am thirteen years old. It’s a cold night in September, a few months into what my dad and I call my science fiction initiation. I sit on the floor of my parents’ room, my back against the foot of their bed. My dad holds a mug of chai tea. His long legs stretch out on the floor. We stare at the TV that rests on my mother’s bureau and wait for it to warm up. It’s an old TV, the square kind with a curved screen I can rap my knuckles on to produce a satisfying hollow thunk.
By Emma Gardnerabout a year ago in Men