Top Stories
New stories you'll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
Public Speaking - Trauma. Top Story - October 2025.
Public speaking can be difficult, even if you take a speech class in high school. I no longer picture people in the audience in their underwear, or look at one person in the audience, or look over everyone's head, or look at the back of the room.
By Denise E Lindquist12 months ago in Writers
You Thought I Was Gone. Top Story - October 2025.
Dear Susan I would have knocked on your door, but I thought I would write a letter instead. "Look in your mailbox"!!! I am no one in particular, just a voice from your past. However, I am just as alive as you are.
By Susan Payton12 months ago in Fiction
Childless Life. Top Story - October 2025.
I love this life that I am currently living and that’s what I am afraid of loving it too much. I am the main character, can it stay that way please? Yet, I see the joy of what a new baby can bring I see that parents would do anything for their child. Would I be able to put my needs aside to help? Is it wrong to think that I’d be a horrible mother? Is it wrong to think that I’d rather be sipping tea and reading?
By Adrianna M. Braun12 months ago in Poets
Thorn in My Side. Top Story - October 2025.
The nurse practitioner looked at Paula’s side to inspect the mole of concern. It wasn’t exactly on her side; the lesion in question was a bit more around her right side toward her back. She had become concerned because, as best as she could see by the acrobatic twisting she needed to do using two mirrors, it had changed in the last month.
By Gerard DiLeo12 months ago in Fiction
Maybe I still see rockets in the sky. Top Story - October 2025.
I remember looking to the sky in my youth and thinking every plane a rocket, every bird a dragon, every wind a whistle, light and high. The trees would sway in the breeze and I would sway with them, the connection between us something I could feel in my bones, but never say aloud. I never said very much then, but I felt it all: the immensity of this world as a child within it. I remember pulling back coarse branches and parting prickly bushes; I remember how my hands felt in the mud, grass tickling against my palms, my fingers caked with dirt. I remember the feel of the smooth, cool rocks, the wriggling of worms, the smell of rain in the air. I remember my early winters, bundled in jackets and scarves, lying face first in the snow, wishing never to leave.
By angela hepworth12 months ago in Writers
~Suits~. Top Story - October 2025.
~ Dress-Code ~ Dress for Success Progressions ~ Twin, Lar, and I worked after school at Kinney Shoe Stores; Best Shoe-Dogs, ever. At the time mandatory to wear complete suits-ties: Fell in love with the cute cashier; lesson learned don't play in your own backyard! Whew, a lot of gabby-girls flowed through all day - shoulda stayed in that biz...!
By Jay Kantor12 months ago in Families
THE POUNDING. Top Story - October 2025.
THE POUNDING * No, it wasn’t Halloween. In fact, it wasn’t even autumn yet. The nights were almost as warm as the days. Spring break was approaching and my boys looked forward to a week off school. Ah, school!! My mind momentarily wandered back to the past – to my high school days. Oh, what fun they were. Now, here I sat enjoying a nighttime cup of tea, while my boys, ages eight and ten were snuggled in their beds sound asleep. My husband? Well, he’d taken off years earlier. Oh well, good riddance, I always said.
By Margaret Brennan12 months ago in Fiction
Interchangeable. Top Story - October 2025.
Instead of her usual dry red, Lara paced back and forth with a glass of whiskey in hand, impatiently waiting for the answer. There was no turning back now. So, she concentrated all of her charm, which usually worked like magic on other people, to convince herself that she was not a bad person. She needed to. The evidence–pointing its big, fat finger at her in the form of a text thread–stared back from her phone, judging her, making that job harder than she wanted to.
By Cristal S.12 months ago in Fiction
The Ritual of Bones. Winner in The Ritual of Winter Challenge. Top Story - October 2025.
I have a pile of bones in my freezer, just a small one right now but it will grow. Winter comes like a seizure in Scotland; first the mellow summer starts to chill, then the morning air starts to smell of wet rot, and all of a sudden some of the nights and dawns are shockingly cold. Biting cold. It passes over and heat seeps back in. Then it comes again; fits of cold... And when the grass crunches underfoot every morning for a week and the sun doesn't rise until I'm on the bus to work I know its time to collect bones.
By S. A. Crawford12 months ago in Humans
The Enemy of My Enemy. Top Story - October 2025.
Lottie took out her earbud and turned towards the front door, even though she couldn’t see it from the kitchen. When she didn’t hear anything else, Lottie shrugged as she put her earbud back in. Which was probably pointless because she was just going to take it out in a few minutes anyway to watch a movie. But she also didn’t care. Lottie had a very bad day yesterday and was having an equally bad day today, so if she wanted to listen to music while making popcorn, then she was going to listen to music while making popcorn. The only reason she wasn’t blasting it on the speakers was because, well...she didn’t have one. Not anymore.
By Rebecca Patton12 months ago in Fiction
SWS: The Shape of the Thing Challenge Winners
Welcome to the penultimate winners announcement in the Summer Writing Series! Sometimes it’s not what’s there, but what isn’t, that changes everything. For The Shape of the Thing Challenge, we asked writers to explore the weight of absence. Those shadows, echoes and almosts that still leave a mark. What came back were stories that showed just how real the unreal can feel.
By Vocal Curation Team12 months ago in Resources
An American Werewolf in London (1981): A Horror Icon. Top Story - October 2025.
Stay off the moors and beware the moon. An American Werewolf in London transformed into theaters in 1981. College students David Kessler and Jack Goodman ignore warnings to stay off the dark British moors and are attacked by a ferocious beast. While recovering, David speculates that something is terribly wrong as the full moon approaches.
By Marielle Sabbag12 months ago in Horror
