Kevin Barry Reads “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run”
#short-stories — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #short-stories, aggregated by home.social.
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Name Your Own Price!
Short Untitled Collection of Absurd Stories
A cast of characters to shock and delight, from violent children to ambitious careerists, police officers to freaks. No one is safe from the dangers and absurdities of this world.
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ARRIVES IN 2 WEEKS! Enter the woods. Follow the laughter. Whatever you do, don’t trust the cottage at the end of the road.
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Church (Hall of Mesonenth)
Reverend Blake prays to the same rotting carcass every night
Nobody but him knows its here
A relic from when dragons controlled this planet, before they birthed Shadowalkers
The body is nothing but bones with pieces of flesh and tendon stuck to it
But the head
The head was massive, draconic, but had the horns of a wasp; a Crotonian
The oldest Morelic records* spoke of a progenitor species of Crotonians, birthing them from their starwombs; a progenitor that was the result of Draconizicans seeking refuge within the bodies of alien insects
But then the question is poised: who created those bugs?
Sometimes Reverend Blake’s mind goes down these rabbit holes whenever he’s in the presence of this body of this Crozethian
Is this dead mother trying to talk to him? To ask him where did she come from?
How could he know?
He is not as ancient and grand as her
Still, he enjoys these rabbit holes
Within them he sees stars, galaxies, and a lively universe full of so many newborns
All emerging from the same womb
Surely this is not the beginning of the universe, but a period when it was at its most lively, yes?
Right now the void itself is still young, still immature, and still pumping out fresh new planets
“do you wish to go home?” he asks
The feeling he receives from her is naught the sadness of missing home
But the feeling of wanting to see how the universe has progressed without her
All it would take is for him to let her in
He feels ghostly tendrils reaching out to him
Blake, on his knees, ever-so diligent in his worship, wants to let her in
But he stands up and comes to his senses
Huffing, his head spinning as he realizes he was nearly posessedRate this:
#Church #Dragons #Fantasy #Fiction #FlashFiction #Poetry #religion #ShortStories -
A lonely soldier finds shelter in an abandoned office building. But he's not quite as alone, nor quite as innocent, as he seems. #writing #scifi #books #shortstories #reading
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🚨 Story Spotlight: Top Quant (⏱️ ±1h15m) 🚨 "You're afraid that if you tell me all of this is a giant computer simulation, I'll have an existential crisis?" https://www.suchwasnot.com/top-quant #writing #scifi #books #shortstories #reading
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Oof, this @MarissaLingen story is beautiful and bittersweet, especially for anyone who’s done end-of-life eldercare: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/until-the-cure/
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RELEASE DAY! London is cold, cruel, and full of things that should not exist. A vicious collection of dark short stories. Available in eBook, paperback, and free on #KindleUnlimited.
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The Whispering Rafters – 3 – Salt Lines and Firefly Light
A handful of salt at the door is the only boundary between safe sleep and waking buried in river silt. Morning light filtered through the closed shutters in thin gold stripes. The whistle from the night before still sat in the house like an unwelcome guest—quiet now, but not forgotten. Bungsu moved carefully around the main room, avoiding the places where the salt lines from last evening had begun to scatter under their bare feet. Sulung was already at the threshold that faced the river […]https://mungan87.wordpress.com/2026/10/09/the-whispering-rafters-3-salt-lines-and-firefly-light/
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When I started writing in English, and subbing stories to open calls around the world, rejections stung.
To fight that, I had this trick of immediately resubmit to a different market. That's how I sold my 30ish stories, by keeping on.
But it's time consuming and I simply allocated less and less time to the submission game. I keep doing that, let's say, once a month, and the I simply forget.
I got two new rejections yesterday and told myself: wow, I'm still in the game.
#SFFwriter #shortstories -
It's an especially good time of year to read Roxane Gay's story "There Is No 'E' in Zombi, which Means There Can Be No You or We". It starts with a poem/primer:
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This Story Hour, Nicole Givens Kurtz and Grace Daly started Spookymonth off in style! Along with the monsters, their stories addressed such horrors as grief, revenge, and the beauty industry. You can still watch! #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading #Horror #HorrorFiction #GraceDaly #NicoleGivensKurtz @nicolegkurtz https://youtu.be/2gd94GjuSGs
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Political Pies is my collection of forty #ShortStories, all with some #Political theme.
https://books2read.com/b/mKkn8d
#Fiction #Humor #Democracy -
Very much enjoying these stories
https://roxanegay.com/books/ayiti-grove-press/ #reading #ShortStories #RoxaneGay #books
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New short story by me: witches raid a tomb in the Sydfjords, unaware that an undead sysadmin still resides inside.
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LAST CHANCE TO PRE-ORDER: A viciously funny horror collection where London’s commuters, career climbers, lovers and killers brush against a nightmare realm. Interconnected stories. No one gets out clean.
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From @DreamForgeMag & author A.S. Klatt-Diego
A new favourite for me in #Library literature! And do read the author's comment at the end how the idea of the store came about.
https://dreamforgemagazine.com/story/the-open-stacks-of-judgement-day/
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Spookymonth! We House-of-Usher* the month in with the Story Hour debuts of Grace Daly and Nicole Givens Kurtz! Join us Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. PDT!
*Not a content hint; just a Poe sense of humor.
#Horror #HorrorFiction #GraceDaly #NicoleGivensKurtz #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading https://www.storyhour2020.com/ -
The Wait Is Over: My Debut Children’s Book Is Available Now!
The Journey to This Moment If you had told me years ago, amidst the beautiful chaos of homeschooling, endless laundry piles, and late-night notes scribbled on scraps of paper, that I would be holding a finished, published children’s book in my hands today… well, I might have just smiled and poured another cup of coffee. But here we are.The day is finally here, and I am so overwhelmingly excited to announce that my debut children’s picture book is officially available after a few minor […]https://heathercongrove.com/2026/10/06/the-wait-is-over-my-debut-childrens-book-is-available-now/
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Join MONKEY on Wednesday, October 21 at 7 pm EST for an hour-long online session that will include a presentation and audience Q&A as they celebrate the online launch of MONKEY New Writing from Japan vol. 7: MEMORY. This presentation is in conjunction with the Japan Society of Boston, and hosted by editors Roland Kelts and Motoyuki Shibata.
(Every issue of Monkey always has something fabulous to read.)
#literature #shortstories #Japan
Pre-registration is required: https://us.list-manage.com/Xf9JhrTQfoR?e=880ccb3a9e&c2id=cd99e12931a69fa3ab4008a1aacfa045 -
This sums up the entire AI industry in one short dumb story that makes no sense unless you understand how big of a scam #AI is
"softmax is when number go soft. gpu go BRRRRR. 400 gpus go BRRRRRRRRR. hot. water gone. sarah drink it. steve say steve. gary do it on toaster. 7 eat chip. gpu still brrrrr. why. no reason. just brrrrr."
#computers #computerscience #GPU #shortstories -
I highly recommend this short story. Probably only take 10 to 15 minutes to read.
Eight O'clock in the Morning by Ray Nelson in 1963.
There was a movie made that was inspired by the short story. It is well worth watching as well.
