Sometimes a story doesn’t need eighty thousand words to stay with you.
Short fiction has always been one of my favorite ways to play with an idea, test a character, or see where a strange prompt might lead.
Over the years, I’ve written stories for contests and publications including The First Line, where every story begins with the same opening sentence and takes off in completely different directions depending on the writer.
One of those stories, “A Winter Visit,” was selected for publication in The First Line — which still makes me ridiculously happy.
Below you’ll find a collection of stories I’ve written through the years: some romantic, some strange, some emotional, and some that surprised even me.
Pick one and disappear for a little while.
A Winter Visit
Being the second Mrs. Roberts means living with the memories of a life that came before her—especially as her husband’s mind begins to slip further into the past. But when Christmas brings the family home, she is reminded that love doesn’t have to come first to be real, or lasting.
Keep readingLover’s Reunited
Leo has spent his first holiday season without the woman he loved for forty-five years, moving through the quiet routines of a life that suddenly feels too empty. Then, in the middle of the night, Martha comes back for him — and asks him to come with her.
Keep readingDuke’s Escape
Duke has had enough of the humans who brought him home. Ignored, mistreated, and determined to get back to the pet shop where he once felt safe, he waits for the first chance to run. What he finds instead is a stranger who might finally prove Stella right—that some humans really are good.
Keep readingThe Drifter
Eddie drifts from town to town, working just long enough to fund the next leg of his journey. Summer Madison is only passing through herself. Neither expects a small-town diner, terrible coffee, and one very public marital implosion to give them a reason to reconsider where they’re headed.
Keep readingThe Eclipse Sapphire
For ten years, Sara lived under a borrowed identity, married to a powerful man and hiding a secret mission no one could discover. Her goal was simple: steal back the Eclipse Sapphire and return it to the family it had been taken from. Fifty years later, a stranger arrives asking the one question she hoped no one ever would—how did you do it?
Keep readingEli’s Mistake
After years of putting the job first, Captain Eli Cooke finally decides his wife is right—it’s time to retire and start living the life they kept postponing. But before he can tell her, one terrible phone call turns that decision into a race against time.
Keep readingJasper
Jasper has spent most of his sixteen years fighting leukemia, but he has never stopped finding magic in the world around him. On the night the circus finally comes to town, his mother is forced to face the possibility that loving him may also mean learning how to let him go.
Keep readingThe Dark Knight
Charlie only wanted to spend the weekend playing his new video game. Instead, one strange glitch drops him into a world where dying in the game means dying for real—and the only way home is to rescue a woman he’s never met. The problem? Everyone insists Gwendolyn is his true love.
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Heather McCoubrey | Author 