Showing results for "inkwell"

An evocative devotional journey through the ancient season of Lent written by forty young writers within the global Christianity Today network.How to Lent invites you on journey through Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, to explore a rich tapestry of spiritual insights on themes like longing, letting go, mystery, and healing and belonging. Structured around the liturgical church calendar, each week unfolds a new movement based on the tradi...

An evocative devotional journey through the ancient season of Lent written by forty young writers within the global Christianity Today network.How to Lent invites you on journey through Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, to explore a rich tapestry of spiritual insights on themes like longing, letting go, mystery, and healing and belonging. Structured around the liturgical church calendar, each week unfolds a new movement based on the tradi...

Linking these stories are found coats with mysterious messages, what will you find?Drowning in Fate - A shopkeeper watched a homeless man peruse his wares, and is surprised by what occurs.Consignment Hell - Kevin goes out shopping to find clothes for his new houseguests...all 7 of the Deadly Sins.Meaningful Searches - After discovering a coat with a single word in the tag, a woman quests to complete the mysterious message.Best I've Ever Had - Man finds a suspic...

Words are a writer's stock in trade, the platforms we build on to entertain, mystify, and entrance. Sometimes we perform grand gestures, paragraphs tumbling over pages to sweep our audience away. But more often than not, it's the right words spoken at the right time that make all the difference. This collection explores how three little words can change everything.Not a Moth - An extraordinary discovery in the subway leads to more questions than answers.Summoned - Duty doesn...

Whether physical, metaphorical, or somewhere in between, these deaths and returns remind us that an ending is simply a beginning in disguise. Sometimes that ending, that change, is sorely needed, and sometimes, it is unexpected, but always, there is no going back. And in the nine stories within, second chances mean everything to the characters.Memories Cast - Some pasts are too painful to bear, especially when repeated.Bill, From Accounting - Has no one ever learned not to o...

The bread and butter of a writer's craft is words, but not just words. It's the use of those words to tantalise a reader's senses, to have them experience the story, and this month, we made that the focus. Or more correctly, we asked for characters with a sense they needed to keep hidden from the world.Why hidden though? Because it makes experiencing the world around one so much more difficult. Taking in information, information you cannot react to, is incredibly difficult. Especia...

What pushes a person to that breaking point? What dark secrets or repressed emotions are hidden behind our exteriors? We all know that pressure that builds and builds until we can't take it anymore and have to let it out. Whether lashing out at others, ourselves, or simply breaking down from too much of everything, when those barriers come down, it's a miracle we aren't washed away.Inferno - Sometimes the world just needs to burnDefenestration Corporation - Rules go out the ...

And as the door closed on the year, we drew inspiration from the essence of that idea by asking our writers: is this an ending, or just the beginning?For isn't that what keeps us all living and striving forward? That urge that once one thing completes, we are catapulted towards the beginning of the next? But what if it truly is the end? So often, we do not know where the journey will take us, but that doesn't stop us setting out on it anyway. One must risk in order to gain, and hop...

Everything starts somewhere, but so often we overlook that turning point in the path, that initial step that'll forever influence our lives to come. Whether it passes by on silent wings, touching us in small ways, or gets right up in our face, a bull in our personal china shop, firsts are the occasions around which our worlds turn. Is it any surprise that the stories born from them are some of the most poignant anyone can tell?Some Things - Perspective can be the difference between...

So many songs are simply stories wrapped in notes and put out there to wrench at our hearts, drive up our passions, and fill us with wonder. Is it a surprise that writers have drawn on the inspiration they provide, used them to stoke the fires of creativity, or simply sunk back into the rhythms to clear their minds? Stirred by the sounds of generations, we weave them into the tales within.So, what more is there to ask than - Will you join us and hear what they have to say?A...

This month, we decided to let our writers be intentionally cruel to their characters. And by "let", please read "gave an excuse". How did we do this? Well, we had them poison their characters. Not only once, dear readers, but twice.Isn't that the human condition, though? To make a mistake, and then do it again, whether intentionally or not. We "poison" ourselves, suffering the consequences and either buckling under or coming out stronger. And whether our actions are literal or not, ...

There is an old adage - "Every villain is the hero of their own story". It might sound corny, but that doesn't make it any less true. Sometimes it's because history is written by the victors, other times it's due to a delusion of what is right. And sometimes, just sometimes, villains simply hold a different view to everyone else. No matter the case, antagonists can be just as interesting and layered as the greatest protagonist, and often we love them more for it.Sticky Notes - A ho...