The top 10 lies authors tell themselves
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It’s the school’s loss, not Emma’s
Boys’ Life/Rough Frontiers

Boys’ Life/Rough Frontiers

by Douglas W. Milliken
The only work he could find was at the truckers’ paradise on the north side of town where the main drag reverts into a numbered highway.
Follow Me

Follow Me

by Carol Malkin
Sara had selected the young girl, and Teddy and Sara had trailed her from the noisy waterfront club.
Rocket Night

Rocket Night

by Alexander Weinstein
It was Rocket Night at our daughter’s elementary school, the night when parents, students, and administrators gather to place the least-liked child in a rocket and shoot him into the stars.
Promises

Promises

by Hilary Dean
You think Fine Arts is going to be a bird degree and then you have to take classes all through the summer and talk about art until you want to kill yourself and also everyone else.
Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley

by Andrea Hansell
I’m famous, and my sister Christine is ordinary. Saying it straight out like that feels strange, but it’s true. We’re identical twins, a fact that fascinates people.
Distance Lessons

Distance Lessons

by Sally Pla
When he came back from that first trip to India, all she could get out of him was that it was “awesome.” He was never a talker. It used to exasperate her when he was little; she’d want to shake him to get words out.
Tulip Tears

Tulip Tears

by Deborah Clearman
When lightning strikes the tulip poplar, five hundred years of leaf lifting crashes into splinter wood, and several notables roll over in their graves.
Family

Family

by Cezarija Abartis
Outside the kitchen window, squirrels scattered the seed from the birdfeeder Paula’s dad had set up. The seeds gleamed in the sun like drops of water.
Dragging Raven Lake

Dragging Raven Lake

by Kevin Couture
The men waited on the shore while Susan, (whose son they searched for), made coffee on the tailgate of a half-ton.
It all began around a campfire…

Beautiful language

is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.

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by Robert Wexelblatt

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Best Writing Contests of 2022, recommended by Reedsy

Lascaux Vol 9

by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review