“Fertile imagery, but NO marketable hook.”
She tossed the NO into a jar to compost down with the NAYs and NOTs – aerated with her sighs, moistened with her sweat – until an idea landed, cracked open and extended roots into the loam.
A shoot, a stalk and then a YES bloomed.
Joanna Norland is a playwright and a writing coach who treats rejections as a badge of honour.
“A girl with a lively imagination must be in want of–”
“A writing desk!” Jane exclaimed. “Oh, Papa!”
She opened the gleaming mahogany drawer.
Out scrambled a tiny . . . Someone.
Brilliant eyes. Muddy petticoats.
”I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” curtseyed the Someone. “I’ve been waiting for you. Let our adventures begin!”
Joanna Norland is a writing coach and playwright whose scripts, including Lizzy, Darcy and Jane, and a one-act and full-length adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, have been produced on four continents.
A week after my son moved out of our basement into his first solo digs, he called.
“It’s going great. Come for brunch on Sunday. I’ll make eggs!”
Sunday morning, I zapped: “Over for eleven. Can’t wait 2CU! Can I bring some juice?”
“Yes please!”
“Croissants?”
“Sure!”
“Anything else?”
“Eggs.”
Writing coach Joanna Norland loves family breakfasts and will happily bring the eggs, every time. Click here to read her recent blog post about 50WS.
You used to stay up until dawn, captivated by my possibilities.
You would scribble clandestine notes for me at work and rush home to resume our tryst.
Now, you complain I’m all drudge.
“Back soon,” you promise, but I’ve seen you…
…courting fresh plots, exotic characters, and even fifty-word stories!
Joanna Norland revised this story nine times.
…are the glittery comet tails of vanishing connections.
“Busiest year yet.” Crumple.
“Sorry I’ve been out of touch.” Toss.
“Promotions, renovations, travel.” Bin.
“Remember the afternoon light, that time we ditched staff training to hike in the snow?”
One for the mantelpiece. Glowing evidence of a friendship still in orbit.
Joanna Norland is a UK-based playwright, currently collaborating with Shake-Scene theatre company on an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
“Wanna know how lonely I am?” she asked. “The last time I went through airport security, I ‘forgot’ to take off my belt, so that I would set off the alarm and the officer would give me a pat-down. She did a perfunctory, routine search. I revisit the moment daily.”
Joanna Norland is a playwright and writing coach.
A young question mark stretches, re-curls his crook and sets off to find The Answer.
Rushing past commas, (swerving around parentheticals) – dashing past hyphens – he skids at last to a full stop.
“I’ve finally reached the point!” he exults.
But then, he spots another. And a third… leading… elliptically… onwards…
Joanna Norland is a playwright and writing coach who loves the fifty word format as a testing ground for new ideas. The creativity and craft of her fellow contributors are a perennial inspiration and spur.
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.
Yarden, I think of you, in that gunshot moment when you learned that the body in the coffin was not your wife’s.
Did you allow a bright bullet of hope to pierce your darkness, even though you knew that it was aimed, with ruthless precision, at your thrice shattered heart?
Joanna Norland dedicates this story to the Bibas family — Yarden, Shiri, Ariel (age 4) and Kfir (9 months), all abducted from the Nir Oz Kibbutz on October 7, 2023, and held in Gaza. Only Yarden returned to Israel alive, February 1, 2025. Hamas claimed to return the bodies of Yarden’s wife, Shiri, and children on February 20, 2024, but DNA testing revealed that the woman’s body was not Shiri’s. Her fate remained unknown until her body was returned by Hamas on the evening of February 21, 2025, and identified by Israeli officials.
My friend, Bob, has posted a fifty-word marvel.
With a deft flick of his crisp wit, he has lassoed a universe.
I cherish the accolades he garners as if they were my own.
After all, did I not urge him to submit?
Bloody Bob. I curse the day we met.
Joanna Norland is grateful to Clive James for his deliciously unapologetic poem, “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered.” It gave her the courage to acknowledge the absurdity of her own paradoxical predicament.