Top Stories
New stories you'll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
The Borrowed Face. Top Story - August 2025.
Elisabetta was woken by shivers that ran up and down her spine. She found herself lying on the dew covered, lush grass. Her head was pulsing with pain. She must have hit it — why else would she hear music shimmering like bells? She was still in the forest.
By Imola Tóthabout a year ago in Fiction
The Shortest Poem Is A Name. Top Story - August 2025.
8/5/25 THE SHORTEST POEM IS A NAME After Anne Michaels The shortest poem is a name. It is fewer letters than breaths, less thought, more familiarity. It is yours to have and mine to harbor, yours to sustain, mine to fatten with vows that hit your larynx like a medicinal drip. The shortest poem is a hum of every sound that has ever been, and it sounds like nothing at all. It is the quickest fleet of fleeting feelings, the smallest feeling of feat that eats at the things you eat— anything to obscure the sunset view through the windshield— anything to keep the light out. The shortest poem writes itself in agony, reaching around limbs and rooms of consciousness to cross a letter that makes no difference to the thing itself. It plugs its ears when I set the dinner table, holds its breath when I open the blinds, closes its eyes when I say its name. I cannot hold the hand of a thing too small to hear, but I can paint the walls with great reflections of life— too big to feed and too slow to feel for more than the fleeting fleet it takes to reach between a rib and write The End.
By Olivia Dodgeabout a year ago in Poets
Fear River. Honorable Mention in Everything Looks Better From Far Away Challenge. Top Story - August 2025.
From time to time, Old Annie could remember how she found the piece of that vintage telephone. How a creek running out from the swamp had washed it down, held crawdad hatchlings under an eddy, and then tumbled itself shiny along the bed.
By Mackenzie Davisabout a year ago in Fiction
Alexandra Feodorovna. Top Story - August 2025.
She was the Empress Consort of Russia who was assassinated by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.She unknowingly passed on haemophilia to her only son and the heir to the Russian throne. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and is remembered as the last Tsarina of Russia. She had a gentle and kind nature but was badly misunderstood by the ladies of the Russian Court.
By Ruth Elizabeth Stiffabout a year ago in FYI
Can we please stop demonising lack of attraction? . Top Story - August 2025.
I want to talk about something I'm feeling really passionate about in my mid-forties, following twenty-five years of dating and relationship experiences; physical attraction, and the traditional idea of monogamy. Also what I observe from other people's marriages, relationships, and needs.
By Karen Caveabout a year ago in Humans
Two Secrets & A Sunset. Top Story - August 2025.
Ingrid spent fourteen straight days holding it under until the grief took her out. She was in the bus shelter on Forest and Elm, the pre-dawn light filtering down through the sky with the infinitesimal flecks of rain that tapped their way over the roof. On the wall beside her, an advertisement for someone's tutoring services, three contact tabs torn roughly off at different points; the same humidity-crinkled missing poster that's been haunting the news all year. Some missing heiress: Beautiful, of course, done up in pearl earrings and necklace. White, of course, or they would've stopped offering rewards long ago.
By Raistlin Allenabout a year ago in Fiction
If Great Dead Writers Were on Facebook - 3. Top Story - August 2025.
I have started these series with the Russian writers and then thought why should I have all the fun alone (thanks to Raymond G. Taylor for the idea to turn this into an unofficial challenge!). So I'm opening it up for others who would like to see if they can bring dead writers into the modernity through their imagined Facebook or other social media posts.
By Lana V Lynxabout a year ago in Critique
Perfect From Afar. Runner-Up in Everything Looks Better From Far Away Challenge. Top Story - August 2025.
“Let’s just try it,” Mark said, looking again at the old car up ahead. ‘Old’ and ‘car’ didn’t quite capture the wreck of it. A 1940’s Chevy 2 door, the kind of hotrod you saw in surf movies twenty years after and sixty years ago. This one even had 2 surfboards on the roof, fins up, like a fancy haircut. Time and the sun, salt and humidity, had not been kind. Technically a car was for moving; this one had served as a billboard for the Crayfish Diner until it closed.
By Bernard Bleskeabout a year ago in Fiction
Night Thing. Honorable Mention in The Shape of the Thing Challenge. Top Story - August 2025.
Chasing the light; ventured too far into the night. Thump-thump, each foot landing heavy. Thump-thump, each heart beat tight in my chest. Keep running, go faster; ravenous teeth right behind, taloned shadows reaching closer to slice and shred. Screaming wind and choking dark: eager, awaiting to pull me apart. Right foot, left foot, one more, one more! Can’t see, keep going, don’t fall down….” “Mommy!”
By Jessica McGlaughlinabout a year ago in Fiction
This Needs to Stop. Top Story - August 2025.
With friendships, how do we really know what the other person is thinking? I might believe someone is my best friend, and later find out from others they were simply tolerating me, perhaps disliking pretty much everything about me. Sometimes, I had that suspicion about Gary, especially after he suddenly ditched me in high school.
By Scott Christenson🌴about a year ago in Fiction
