Joe O’Connor

Joined February 2023

82 stories

Bio

New Zealander

English teacher

Short stories and poems📚

Please be honest- I would love your constructive feedback, as it's the only way I'll get better. Would rather it was pointed out so I can improve!

Currently writing James The Wonderer

Achievements (9)

Stories (82)

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Water Trails. Winner in Leave the Light On Challenge.
The wind whispers to itself, playing along the old boards of a lone farmhouse, seeking a gap where it can creep inside. Moonlight falls in muted beams, casting shadows long across the bikes and toys scattered through the yard. Reaching further, it moves into the fields of corn, long ears bowed and sorrowful. Finally, it pierces through the clouds to cover a solitary cross embedded in the dirt beneath a tree-swing, the white gleam chasing away the dark. Swaying silently in the uneven breeze, the swing lurches, while the branches above stretch and scrape the milky sky.
By Joe O’Connor5 months ago in Fiction
Sour cherry and French vanilla
I close my eyes and see you seated, At the bar, your drink completed, And wish that I was sat down by your side. Take me back, to when we used to,
By Joe O’Connor6 months ago in Poets
The storm before the calm. Top Story - July 2025.
No-one speaks as they shuffle, lined up in a row. All around them, thousands of frenzied voices cry, they screech and they crow,
By Joe O’Connor6 months ago in Poets
An absence of mushrooms
The blonde girl sat down, opened her own desk, pulled out a fluffy green pencil-case, and smiled. It clearly wasn't her first day.
By Joe O’Connor6 months ago in Fiction
An hour on the inside. Runner-Up in I Wrote This Challenge. Top Story - June 2025.
Defiance. It’s a word that comes pre-loaded, heavy with meaning. It’s a challenging of authority, a refusal to follow orders, and an unwillingness to be dictated to.
By Joe O’Connor7 months ago in Writers
Icarus, but not as you know it
We all know the story, or at least we think we do. Icarus and his father Daedalus were Ancient Greeks, trapped by the cruel King Minos, who believed that Daedalus has betrayed him.
By Joe O’Connor7 months ago in History
A Big Bang. Runner-Up in History Would’ve Burned This Page Challenge.
One has messy white hair, a bushy moustache, suit jacket and tie, and looks off-camera. The other has dark combed hair, wears glasses, is clean-shaven, clothed in clerical attire, and looks to his counterpart.
By Joe O’Connor7 months ago in History
His struggle
She sat alone, her chin nestled on steepled hands, staring at a wall full of posters that needed to come down with the end of the semester, awaiting the knock.
By Joe O’Connor7 months ago in History
Birdsong.
A melodic whistle at sunrise invites tomorrow to update its name, on the theme of change, it knits together the silver threads of its surroundings.
By Joe O’Connorabout a year ago in Poets
Tall Poppy Syndrome
Sprout through your thick skin. Throw off the weight of suffocating rubble. Grasp and stretch and unfurl blindly. Weave and chase your compass dutifully north: spiral forwards, upwards, towards.
By Joe O’Connorabout a year ago in Poets
The Journey
A seven-colour promise painting rain-washed air. Prism guide us: life is gold.
By Joe O’Connorabout a year ago in Poets
Run. Top Story - October 2024.
There was only one rule: don’t open the door. It didn’t need to be watched, guarded, or even locked. They couldn’t come across the threshold without an invitation, no matter their might.
By Joe O’Connorabout a year ago in Horror