Top Stories
New stories you'll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
Standing up . Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge. Top Story - January 2025.
Lemonade never tasted so good- photo by M. Dion The hotel lobby is busy. I slip through the bustling throng of guests to the bar. Raising my voice above the din, I ask my friend Pam for a simple lemonade. I've dreamt of this moment all year. I quickly add one additional request and hand her a glass I produce from my bag.
By Meagan Dion2 years ago in Beat
Howling. Top Story - January 2025.
"Oh my god, isn't she precious?" Jeannie cooed. Marcus had to admit she was right. The dog was awfully cute. She was tiny, couldn't have been more than a couple of months old. Dark brown fur and ears way too big for her body. There was a little sheet of laminated paper taped to the window with the pet store logo and some basic information, a kind of doggy dossier.
By Daniel Bradbury2 years ago in Horror
Song for a New Year. Top Story - January 2025.
A BRIEF POINT OF NOTE: I must say from the outset of this that the following is NOT an entry to either the "Soundtrack of the Year" challenge, nor the brand new "New Year, New Projects" challenge! I most unfortunately have not had time to work up a submission for the former, and have only just moments ago learned about the latter. I certainly intend to write something for the new challenge, which I find SO cool - perhaps even pertaining to the subject of this piece!
By Gabriel Huizenga2 years ago in Beat
Businesswoman Chapter 3. Top Story - January 2025.
When one of the hard hats had finally been distributed, Loreen knew she had to affix it right in consideration of her hair. She knew both safety and vanity. Two other women and three men walked behind her at the construction site.
By Skyler Saunders2 years ago in Fiction
The Dumbest Criminals. Top Story - January 2025.
Barry & Gary were a couple of absolute spanners! Dumb as rocks those two blokes were, they became a laughing stock in London, nobody took them seriously. Not even your old gran would be threatened by their pathetic attempts at threats, they looked as dim-witted as they appeared too. Both of whom were balding and pudgy, looking like aged bulldogs that do nothing but grumble, sleep and shit all day long. If they didn't look so bloody hilarious, they might've been shot in the head, both of them, long before this story. Gangsters kept the two spanners alive, just to point and laugh at them, I suppose. Barry & Gary were "wannabe thugs", who often preyed on teenagers instead of grown men like themselves, yet they would still get battered by the rowdy chavs more often than not. Whenever the police were knocking about, they'd both shit themselves and leg it, like a couple of rats! The two men were cousins who grew up in the nicer part of Essex, but always wanted to appear tough and rough, putting on fake cockney accents and walking with their arms stretched out, looking like your mam carrying the shopping bags home. This went on for years, trying to appear like the hardest men in London, only to fail every time. So, of course they got desperate. Started bars fights and always lost, began pick pocketing and always got caught. Always ran whenever a knife was pulled out on them or something. They decided to rob a barbers one day, that's right. Not a bank, not a shop, not even a restaurant, a barbers. It was a start I guess, how hard could that be? They often visited the same place to get their haircut, so nobody expected them to try and rob the place. They entered on a Saturday morning at 9AM.
By Joseph Roy Wright2 years ago in Critique
Tales of Hearth Challenge Winners
Winter holds moments of shared warmth and comfort that echo through literature and memory alike. For the Tales of Hearth Challenge, we invited writers to capture that timeless feeling through a story that reminds us why the chill outside makes the warmth inside all the more precious and submit to the Families community.
By Vocal Curation Team2 years ago in Resources
I am IT . Top Story - January 2025.
Anxiety waves wash over me this December 31, 2024. In years past, there was excitement, or fatigue, waiting for Rocking New Year’s Eve and gastronomic juices flowing, thinking of our January 1st good luck dinner. This year’s end is an exclamation. I am now IT, the last one. When my mother died, the realization exploded in my brain that being the youngest conferred the unique experience of more loss. I would be the last to die, the survivor, my fate that of experiencing more loss. I reached it this year. Here it is. I have arrived. I have no one to ask about a forgotten or dim memory, no one to clarify confusion in the youngest's memories.
By Andrea Corwin 2 years ago in Poets
10 Magazines That Pay for Fiction. Top Story - January 2025.
The information in this article is correct as of January 2025. With the New Year just beginning, I know all of you writers will be making resolutions and planning how to progress in the year ahead. Making money from writing isn't everyone's goal, but a shift towards aiming for publication is certainly on my radar. While elbow deep in research, I thought it might be a good idea to share some of what I find!
By S. A. Crawford2 years ago in Writers
