Short Story Month- A Month that Nobody Knew About

No point beating around the bush here, let's get straight to it. May is not only my birthday month (on the 27th), it's also short story month. Yep. That's a real thing. In honor of short story month, I am going to tell you more about short stories, the month, and a duodecillion other things in under 4500 characters.

The definition according to Mariam-Webster Dictionary is "an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot". To sum that up for people who don't understand 18th century English, a short story is... well... a short story. Most short stories in contests and collections are typically from 300-3500 words. Stand-alone published short stories go from 1500-5000, sometimes even up to 10,000. These are just my estimates though, so don't sue me for it.

Okay, I made up me telling you about short story month's history. The only thing I know about the actual short story month is that some website called shortstorymonth.com made it, though I'm not sure. I mean, the website even says "not secure" (you can still visit it, but don't put any private information). But what I am going to explain you is the history of short stories. Short stories begun before humans could write. In fact, they were the first kind of stories. Since humans couldn't write at the time, they would make the stories short, and a lot of times they would make it rhyme so they could remember. Like poetry. In the Renaissance times, stories would reflect certain cultures. For example, the Celts in Ireland would have stories about magic and stuff like that. But around the 17th and 18th century, people started becoming more interested in longer stories, and interest for short stories started to decline. But after that, everyone started becoming more interested in it. Most famous writers have published at least one short story, and most writing contests are for short stories. If you want more information, read this article in Encyclopedia Britannica.

Finally, let me share with you a few of my short stories I have written:

1. The Envelope by Ayaan Haque: When Luke finds an Envelope on his doorstep, threatening him to give away his best invention. So he equips a fake version with cameras and microphones. But when they send the invention, he realizes he has been betrayed, and everything spirals out of control. This is my personal favorite, and the story is told as an interview transcript of the main character.

2. Change by Ayaan Haque: 11-year-old Ahmed Sharif lives in the city of Aleppo, Syria. His life is perfectly normal, until the gunshot. The first gunshot of the war. Soldiers fire into a protesting crowd, so Ahmed, his sister Fatima, and his parents pack their things, and take a train to Baghdad in Iraq. When they arrive, they decide to go to another country. The United States of America. This story won Fall 2019 The Betty Award, and you can see it on there website till June of 2020.

3. Apollo 19: Disaster in the Darkness: Apollo 19 is on it's way to the moon. It's mission? Colonization. After Apollo 18, everybody at NASA just wanted a mission to not go bad. But of course, disaster strikes. A piece of space trash hits Apollo 19's oxygen tank. Their rocket is losing oxygen- and fast. Luke, one of the 5 people aboard the doomed rocket tries to bring the rocket back to Earth. Will they make it back to Earth? Or will they be lost in space? You can buy the story on Amazon for $0.99, and read it on your mobile device.

4. A Pesky Summer Tanager (NEW!): A Reedsy Prompts Contest Story: Meet Jess Moore. Father of Elizabeth Moore, sometimes, he can be a bit too nice to her. He works for a bird accounting company, lives with his grandma on Puerto Rico, and works from home, But when Elizabeth brings home a pet bird, it causes a lot of problems.

5. To Forgive, or Not To Forgive (NEW!): A Reedsy Prompts Contest Story: It's the 1950's. Will, a 19 year old who signs up for the army is disappointed when Dan, a kid who annoys him a lot, signs up for the army and ends up being with him for his entire training. But when the Korean War breaks out and Will accidentally hurts Dan, it's up to Dan to either forgive or not.

Anyways, that's it. Honestly, I didn't even know that short story month was a thing but hey, here we are. Bye!