Tag Archives: fantasy

GRACIE LIRETTE: the one who gets discovered every time

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

Talk of witchcraft made the townspeople go quiet. It’s only a matter of time before the hunt begins. Teachers will carry pitchforks instead of pencils, and children will carry torches instead of toys.

Alice hides her purple, spell-stained hands behind her back.

In this lifetime, who will her betrayer be?

Gracie Lirette is a young writer seeking to gain as much experience as she can before the daunting world of adulthood takes over. Earlier this year she earned two regional Gold Keys for a short story and flash fiction in the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and now she is diving into microfiction.

LORRAINE MANTON: A Children’s Fairy Tale

Adventure, Odd, Submissions, ,

There weren’t fairies at the bottom of our garden. There were monsters, small, scabrous and very hungry, who ate any pests: insect, animal, human. Then they watched us.

There were monsters at the bottom of our garden… until the fairies came and ate them.

And now the fairies watch us.

Lorraine Manton is currently studying creative writing and literature at Deakin University, Australia and has a great fondness for books, coffee and small slices of imaginary lives.

NINA BASU: The Offering

Adventure, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

At dusk, villagers watched the crimson sun bleed into the mountains, where smoke curled from hidden caves. “They’ll wake soon,” whispered the elder. No one moved. One child left a carved offering at the cliff’s edge. Moments later, clouds churned. Wings split the sky. The dragons had remembered her name.

Nina is 11 years old, and lives in England, United Kingdom. She is an avid reader. Nina loves both the classics (Tom Sawyer, Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol) and contemporary literature. She particularly loves fantasy and stories of dragons. She placed third in the W.J. Kite writing tournament in 2022, and was published in the W.J. Kite anthology.

SUSMITA RAMANI: In the Clearing Between Worlds

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“Can I go somewhere with fairies?” I ask.

“Sorry,” the gnome says. “They don’t like your kind. The only alternate world available to you is a version of your own where no one invents the telephone, radio, movies, or computers.”

“What do they do?” I ask.

He laughs. “Everything else.”

Susmita Ramani is a writer and lawyer who has a novella coming out from Running Wild Press in 2026. She has two teenage daughters and performs improv with a group. She lives in Palo Alto, California.

JOANNA NORLAND: The Aborted Suit of the Epic Hero Trapped in a Fifty-Word Tale

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

Lady, to merit thy love, I coaxed a golden tear from King Midas’s eye, which I bartered for a mermaid’s song.
I used her voice to lull a Dragon while I snatched his diamond tooth.
This, I present to you, peerless Lady, and humbly pray on bended knee, wilt thou—

Joanna Norland has learned through painful experience always to check the word count and trim where possible.

JENNY MATTERN: Sea-Sister

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

The sea delivers soft-edged bits of glass and storm-tossed shells.

On a high tide, it brought my sister, soft-edged and storm-tossed with hair like fire.

We railed against the waves when they stole her back.

Even now, my eyes comb the greedy sea for the gleam of her iridescent tail.

Jenny Mattern is a poet, a crafter of stories, and a cake-for-breakfast enthusiast who lives with her family in Montana.

PIPER PUGH: My Grandmother’s Captor

Adventure, Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I’m calling to tell you: I’ve been kidnapped.

I laughed.

What’s funny, David? He’s got me trapped here…

Who?

This chubby elf-man.

WHO?

My CAPTOR.

You mean George?

Who the heck’s George?

GEORGE, your husband.

Later, George returned. He helped sprinkle salt around the house, to ward off the elves.

Piper Pugh is a writer and educator living in Los Angeles, CA.

BENNETT BOWMAN: In the Woods

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Damp dirt, a canopy of trees blanketing the ground in cool shade. Ferns, sprouting from the earth, clumping around misty redwoods, silent.

A fairy circle, a clear patch of earth. Something small wanders around. It flutters and flocks, swaying under the shade, brushing along the forest floor.

Fairies live here.

Bennett Bowman is a student at a small highschool in California. He’s definitely going to be famous someday.

AR CARRASCO: A Hunters’ Moon at the French Gulch Hotel

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

Chattering coyote laughter woke a sweat-drenched psychic; clairvoyance tormented her with nocturnal visions of travelers in torment. Shovel-in-hand, the village soothsayer climbed the moonlit eastern ridge of Iron Mountain. She prepared to save a life or dig a grave. The glowing yellow eyes of an owl followed her cattywampus course.

A.R. Carrasco is an American writer based in Oakland, California.

ROBERT CARLBERG: The Time-Traveling Fortune Teller

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

Even from a distance Herbert could tell the accident hadn’t happened yet. Slipping into the crowd, he quickly scanned their faces, looking for the one. When it came, the noise still startled him, and it wasn’t who he was expecting. He came dangerously close to being involved, as per usual.

This story was written by Brown Sugar Bourbon. It was transcribed and tightened up by Robert Carlberg.