Short Fiction Stories To Read Online
Aquilino Neadstine
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the second year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
Flash Fiction Online celebrates the art of writing flash fiction and short stories within the constraint of 1,000 words. I think most of us, if not all, can agree that flash fiction pieces that are written well manage to follow a momentous tale from beginning to end seamlessly, in which a character shows growth/change.
I think these micro-fiction stories work because they convey emotions vividly. In flash fiction pieces this short, the urgency to be punchy is heightened and what better way to make something resonate then by making the reader feel?
This folk/cosmic horror story appears alongside stories from Gwendolyn Kiste, Ray Knowles, Alex Wolfgang, Timothy G. Huguenin, and more. My story features a Tuckerization of writing friend Gully Novaro and is one of my favorite recent works. May 2023.
One of my favorite stories, in one of my favorite magazines! Thisstory originally appeared in Three-Lobed Burning Eye. It is my most reprinted story and marks my second appearance in Dark Matter Magazine. May 2022.
A tiny experimental flash piece drawn from my novel-in-progress All My Really Good Friends. The editor of ergot, Samuel M. Moss, has a clear and compelling vision, and I am excited to see what he publishes next. Check out the other stories there too! April 2022.
My story of a young murderer appears in this volume alongside stories from Ramsey Campbell, Robert Ford, Zandra Renwick, and many more. Flame Tree has the loveliest covers and does a nice author Q& A for these: part one and part two. This is my second story in the Gothic Fantasy series. February 2022.
My second story of 2022 is a very short one! This online journal published pieces of 500 words or less. The story is in great company, and you can access the full TOC for issue 1 here. January 4, 2022.
A story inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, beautifully narrated by Bryce Dahle. A story of a young murderer with spot-on narration by Sarah Mehra. My second and third stories on the podcast. February 2021.
I was happy to have this very short story reprinted at Centropic Oracle after the original publisher, Automata Review, went offline. Centropic Oracle also compiled this handy bibliography of my work as of 2020. Fantastic narration by Tori Danner!
The teacher dreams begin. I loved Automata Review. This publication ran from 2017-2020 and published some wonderful stories by writers such as Stephen Graham Jones, Premee Mohamed, and Eddie Generous. Sadly, the magazine is no longer active, but the story was podcasted on Centropic Oracle in a later year. 2018.
A seller of fully chameleonic foil brings her wares to the park. December 2017. My first appearance in this online magazine. This story was also reprinted in The Arcanist: Year One and in Sins and Other Worlds, edited by Eric S. Fomley.
The first piece I submitted to a national publication. I was thrilled with the lovely narration by Dagny Paul as well as the discussion of the story by Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West of Faculty of Horror. My first appearance on this podcast. Dagny Paul did an excellent narration of this story. This was part of the series Artemis Rising 3, which had an amazing cover from Ashley Mackenzie. March 2017.
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list, and chances are there are many, many more wonderful YA short stories online for free. If you know of any others, do drop a link to them in the comments for even more opportunity to celebrate the short story.
The magical author of The UglyDuckling,The Princess and the Pea, andThe Brave Tin Soldier, Andersen also wrote poignant short stories enjoyed by readers of all ages, includingThe Last Dream of Old Oakand the tender, bittersweet Christmas classic The Little Matchstick Girl.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote some of the most famous children's stories andfairy-tales of all time, including;The Brave Little Tailor,Little Briar-Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty),Rapunzel,TheElves and the Shoemaker,Rumplestiltskin, & more See our Favorite Fairy Tales by Age.
We are delighted to announce the five regional winners of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize: Reena Usha Rungoo (Mauritius) for the Africa region, Sanjana Thakur (India) for the Asia region, Julie Bouchard (Canada) for the Canada and Europe region (translated from French into English by Arielle Aaronson), Portia Subran (Trinidad and Tobago) for the Caribbean region, and Pip Robertson (New Zealand) for the Pacific region.
The five regional winners will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 26 June 2024. Their stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta.
A 12-year-old girl and her brother visit their troubled father for the weekend. Mistrust of her own body and a sense of duty to protect her father from the consequences of his actions lead her into danger.
Pip Robertson has had short stories published in journals and anthologies in print and online. She has a Master of Arts from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand, with her partner, daughter and dogs.
Reena Usha Rungoo is a Mauritian writer, scholar, teacher, speaker, and mother. As an islander, an African and a diasporic South Asian, she uses the language of fiction (whether as a writer or a literary critic) to speak on how colonial violence infiltrates our beings, our languages and our desires, and on the creative ways in which we resist. She is an assistant professor of literature at Harvard University.
The first mother is too clean; the second, too pretty. In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches laundry turn round in her machine, dreams of white limousines, and tries out different mothers from the shelter. One of them has to be just right.
Julie Bouchard, a Montreal native and current resident, has released two collections of short stories and a novel over the last decade with La Pleine Lune, a Quebec-based publishing house. She was awarded the Radio-Canada Short Story Prize in both 2020 and 2021. She currently works in academic publishing.
Jennifer Severn has worked as a commercial and technical writer and has always written for pleasure. She has written local interest stories for her local community newspaper, The Triangle, since 2003. Her manuscript Long Road to Dry River was shortlisted for the Finch Prize for Memoir in 2018. An early manuscript for her novella Garnet was shortlisted for the Viva la Novella prize in 2022. Read her blog at www.jennifersevern.com.au.
M Donato is a Filipino-New Zealander living in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara. She has a BA in English Literature from Victoria University and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her work has been published in Turbine, Newsroom, and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa, New Zealand.
A young narrator moves to New York in the year 2058 and befriends a local laundromat owner. Things take a turn as the narrator discovers that the laundromat owner is actually a former reggae star who plans to use a washing machine to turn back time for one final concert.
Stefan Bindley-Taylor is a Trinidadian-American musician, writer, and educator. Raised in Maryland, he currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Through his writing, he renders absurdist and surrealist worlds from a West Indian perspective. His prose is inspired by the work of authors such as V.S. Naipaul, Gish Jen, and Frantz Fanon. As a musician, he performs in a self-produced hardcore project called FISHLORD and an alternative hip-hop project called Nafets.
Ajay Patri is a writer and lawyer from Bangalore, India. His short fiction has been published in the Bristol Short Story Prize anthology in the past. He is also the recipient of a fellowship from South Asia Speaks, a mentorship programme for early career writers.
F.E. Choe is a Canadian and Korean-American writer whose work has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine, The Moth Magazine, and Fractured Lit. She is a 2023 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, Viable Paradise alum, and an Editor at 100 Word Story. Born in Toronto, Canada, she currently lives in the United States.
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