Top Stories
New stories you’ll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
The Room for Eliza. Runner-Up in You Were Never Really Here Challenge. Content Warning.
At the end of the hall, there’s a room we don’t talk about. Mother calls it the “Sewing Room”. She says it in the same tone she uses when talking about frozen casseroles or tax deadlines; blunt, flat, leaving no room for a second opinion. The “Sewing Room” hasn’t seen a spool of thread in, at least, thirteen years; a blatant lie, so we don’t talk about it long.
By Luna Jordan7 months ago in Fiction
A Search for Identity. Content Warning.
My name is Elizabeth Woods, and I am a survivor of child abuse and life changing trauma. I survived one of the worst childhoods you can ever imagine and I have written my story in a memoir: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter, available on Amazon.
By Elizabeth Woods7 months ago in Psyche
Villainess Review: Sheryl Anderson (My Sister's Double Life)
Lifetime has really been delivering when it comes to villainesses lately, and I mean really delivering. It's not just the type of villainesses, it's who they get to play them. Some faces have been new to me, some haven't, and a number of them are doing this whole Lifetime villainess thing for the very first time. Last year's bunch was delicious, but this year's has really been quite epic, and the year's nearly half over.
By Clyde E. Dawkins7 months ago in Geeks
Long Nose the Liar
There was an old liar who lived in our village. I’m sure of it. No one else seems to remember him, but then again no one else seemed to like him either. Back then the other children called him “Long Nose the Liar” because he looked like Pinocchio, and all his stories sounded like lies.
By Judah LoVato7 months ago in Fiction
Coming up for Air
It can’t be me she’s yelling at. There must be a mistake. Nobody calls me Tor. Not anymore. Not in years. She shouts louder this time, and darts across the street, zigzagging between beeping cars, giggling and waving an apology. She stumbles onto the pavement, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and holds out her arms. I shuffle backwards and lower my eyes, picking at my thumbnail. It’s strange. But even after all this time, there’s something achingly familiar about seeing your mum again.
By Caroline Craven7 months ago in Fiction
Existentiality
What is the question? Perhaps the most vexatious of all the puzzles which philosophers have pondered throughout the ages is that of the meaning of life, of what we ought to do with this magical gift, of how we ought to act and what we ought to care about, if we wish to live well. This was the original aim of all philosophy, a fact which has been largely forgotten in the academic echo-chamber of modernity: one ponders the orb as means to an end, as a way to discover the good life. Yet there is so much that man does not know, that it seems he must endeavour first to alleviate his ignorance if he is to have any definitive solution to this problem.
By Insinq Datum7 months ago in Psyche
The Rite of the First Meal
The first time I cooked in a kitchen that was mine, I cried over a box of prepackaged rice. Not because it tasted good, it really didn’t, but because I could make it, eat it, and no one would take it from me. No footsteps thudding down the hall. No shouting. No disposal switch flipping like a guillotine. Just me, the steam rising from the pot, and a silence that finally felt soft instead of sharp. There was something about standing there, watching it simmer, the scent beginning to fill the air that made me remember the first time I tried to make it. I was eleven. I hadn’t eaten in days.
By M.R. Cameo7 months ago in Fiction
Anthropomorphism
It’s distressing, you know? While thinking aloud, I stumbled upon an unexpected epiphany. Maybe the way I’d been taking care of you had been a roundabout way to care for myself. That certainly wasn’t the intent, but in the long term that’s how it turned out to be.
By Lark Hanshan7 months ago in Fiction
The First 40 Years of Childhood Are the Hardest For A Man. The Second 40 Just Fly By...
There’s a saying that perfectly sums up the entire male existence: “The first 40 years of childhood are the hardest for a man. The second 40 somehow fly by.” Honestly, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
By Tina's Blossom Life7 months ago in Humor
Why I'm Not Worried About AI
Entering our third year of a post-AI world seems to have done little to dampen the hype around it. Buzzword or not, it’s hard to ignore the vigour in which tech is determined to crown itself the new feudal lord, constantly banging the marching drum of progress to the beat of enforced adoption. As a creative, I’m just as aware of the encroachment of AI, threatening the livelihood of artists, musicians, and writers.
By Conor Matthews7 months ago in Writers
Strange Sally Diamond
I picked up this book at the B&N’s Blind Date With a Book display. I loved the entire concept of selecting a mystery book based on a one-sentence teaser. Especially because they were lovingly wrapped by hand and the handwriting must have taken good effort (if they used the cursive it would have been even more attractive). As a public relations professional I think this marketing technique is brilliant, tapping into the book lovers’ serendipitous desire to be surprised with something new.
By Lana V Lynx7 months ago in BookClub
