Being a 'difficult woman', Oklahoma farm-gal Mavis wasn't having much luck with the local dating pool. Her Pa signed her up to emigrate to newly terraformed Mars, because 'Mars needs women'. Maybe there she could find a good man to marry. But Mavis had no intention of getting hitched, despite what the legal contract s...
SHORTLISTED. Paul Finn wakes to discover that not only is he feeling horribly sick but, more worryingly, the naked stranger in his bed isn't moving. If only he could remember what happened... My story for the ONC 2023, a thriller scifi adventure, with a touch of romance. (SciFi /Adventure / LGBT)
In which I give tips and journal about my own writing journey for Open Novella this year.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ONC2023 CHALLENGE! One dark and stormy night a family went missing, they left taking absolutely nothing with them. When their disappearance was reported, nobody, including the police could figure out what happened. The mystery has gone unsolved for almost 10 years, then a call comes in from an unkn...
A new neighbor moves in. He is reclusive. He seems to never leave the house. He causes trouble in the neighborhood He turns your life upside down. Then he is gone, replaced by a handsome relative. A well known doctor who promises to fix all your problems. It seems like Fate has stepped in. You have a feeling of Déjà...
Three women. Three tangled lives orbiting Mars aboard the Phobos Transit Space Station. Val loses her station operation engineer job under false pretenses, Exo-biologist Cassy is blackballed for doing the right thing, and ex-marine Kate suffers a broken heart. Fortunately, Mavis, the owner of the Starlight Tavern and...
A Curse crawls inexorably across the Elysium Realm, turning everything it touches to lifeless stone. Anara, a powerful young witch, vows to stop it, but became herself infected and disfigured. After his mother goes missing, Micah, an unaware college student, finds himself drawn into an alternate world where magic rule...
A dystopian space novella created for the ONC Open Novella Contest 2023, the story is set in the rock-bound space surrounding the Terran solar system at the edge of interstellar space. The story's origin is set in the 21st Century at the death of Wilhelm (Bill), the last living male member of a North American old-mone...
Born in a society where an AI ran the daily lives of every human being including deciding their spouse, Ava never questioned her role. However, the day the handsome stranger who had haunted her dreams manifested into the real world, she knew she would never be content with the life that had been planned for her by the...
Liha wants to avenge his family. If he has to become one of the king's men to do this, he will. But in the capital Penira, the golden city, he learns fast a man has to prove his worth. Sword in hand, if needs be. Dánirah hates the city, and people of her tribe are not welcome there. But she must deliver a message to o...
| 𝟏𝟐𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 | An ex-gamer enters a virtual reality ruled by a rebel AI in order to rescue her younger sister and shut down the death game. * * * Eight years ago, Mori Fukutomi held the rank of number two player in the tactical hero sho...
My journal for ONC this year, following through with my tradition of writing a journal every year.
A supernatural romance story written for the ONC 2023 This cover was made with Canva's QuickGen app.
|𝟏𝐱 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃/𝐎𝐍𝐂 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐒| When the apocalypse arrives 𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐄 is ready to accept death after living a cursed life. But fate has other plans for him. Whisked away by a mysterious taxi driver with a silver tongue, Kane finds himself caught up in the world of faes, vampires...
War is coming, and time is running out. Kevin doesn't know this. Despite the boiling global tensions, he dwells on his looming graduation with uncertainty, disillusionment, and the haunting memories of his disgraced father as he struggles to imagine the man he himself will grow into. When war arrives, Kevin, his mom...
Lord Lucian Wentworth disappeared in 1819. Was he escaping a loveless marriage or was it something more sinister? No one believes the valet's story that his master vanished into an antique mirror. Not until unemployed actor, Ben Lucas, meets the same fate two hundred years later. Now stuck in Rhillion, a world full of...
A ghost on the archaeological excavation of a Roman cemetery sounds like a perfect opportunity for Sandrine and Matt, founders of Ghost Guard Inc., to showcase their talent. But when they arrive on Vic's dig site to investigate, the ghost already disappeared - only to pop up in the museum's depot the next day. What sh...
**** Top Pick, 2023 Amby Awards **** **** HighFantasy Book of the Month, June 2023 **** To save the world, Mage Aria sacrificed herself, becoming trapped with the personification of Darkness within an impenetrable tomb of rock and magic. But she had not realized how much of a hell that would be. Dreams of deep despa...
When Huang Haoyu, Zhao Zan's boss, requests him to take on the assignment to protect his 'Idol' brother, Huang Haojun, aka Zhelan, a twenty-year-old rapper with a bad boy image and an attitude to boot, Zhao Zan is less than interested. Nonetheless, he agrees (reluctantly) only to find out that there are secrets and li...
PROMPT 49 CONTEST ENTRY - Getting in the back of a taxi, your character finds a thick envelope. It's addressed but has no postage. After getting stuck in a downpour, Warren Daly ends up in a taxi waiting for better driving conditions. When he notices a package on the floor in the back, he and the driver agree to deli...
Steampunk light/ Comedy. A terrifying new exhibit on at London Zoo is the talk of the town. Amelia Tooting-Spur couldn't care less...until the creature escapes, throwing the Metropolitan Police into a panic. With the help of some of her eccentric friends from the Mastermind Society-- including undervalued mind-reader...
[The Ambys 2023 Winner in Diverse Lit. Category] Bhallar, a young doctor with a hidden agenda to take down the ruthless Pharaoh: the supreme ruler of the New Kingdom, finds himself in a tight spot when Mayeen, his sister, whom he thought to be dead, ends up on a 'WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE' poster issued by the royal house...
Luke and Naluma have had a rough year, but their Force-bonded love has gotten them through the death of a student a few months earlier. However, Luke's worried about Naluma, who is trapped at the Jedi Academy with three dozen Padawan driving her crazy in the dead of winter. He surprises her with a long-overdue vacati...
Laurel finds herself competing in The Game. A deadly competition that only 1 will survive. But there's something about the game that just doesn't seem to make sense... Let the game begin. This is written with prompt 31 of the ONC of 2021. I'm may also just throw in some other prompts. Because I can. Cover art by @I-im...
(HONORABLE MENTION) Rik Sandro is a dimension traveller. Jumping from one version of the world to another was intriguing at first, until he discovered he can never go home. Now all these new beginnings are just a pain. Maybe it's time to stay in one place. Maybe it's time to settle down. Maybe it's time to fall in...
Joy. Meaning? A great pleasure or happiness. For Joy DeVries, her great pleasure comes hand-wrapped with secrets and murder. Joy DeVries grew up a childhood star, and it came with as much baggage and scars as one would imagine. Nowadays, she's known as Joy Daisy, a kids show TV legend, and that's all she'd prefer p...
Payton Carpenter always believed in magic. Whether it be in books or real life, she knew magic was real. What she didn't know was that it was most definitely real in a small city in Australia. When Payton was asked to speak to the River City chapter of The Society of Magical Books, she wasted no time agreeing to it. T...
What if having superpowers was not a gift but a curse? Would you still choose to use it? Aleksandra Leszczyńska works as an agent for a secret government organisation training people with superpowers - the Gifted - to work as a police support force. Working as a public servant to keep peace and order was always her dr...
