Getting Hitched - Short Fiction Wanted

Original short stories required. Stories must be about relationships and fit the theme of the month but can be in any genre. Submissions close on the second Friday of each month.

For more details, including the themes for 2008, visit the Getting Hitched Fiction Submission Guidelines

Getting Hitched Fiction

July Fiction - Suspicions

• Suspicious Move - by Laura Rittenhouse - "We’re out of milk for the tea.  I’ll just pop down to the shops and get some.  Back in a tick." That’s my husband absconding from the scene of an unpleasant task.  Something he’d be famous for, if anyone besides me ever witnessed his prowess.
   
• The Next Step - by Lauren Walter - "I just know," Jane said. "Just by the way he’s been acting. Ogling the display windows of jewellers. Being all cagey and secretive. I’ll bet you anything Adam’s going to propose to Claire."
   
• Pammy - by Patricia Abernethy - "Pammy says she’s got to dress up ‘cause she’s gonna be a bridesmaid," James told his brother as he and Philip trailed slowly home.
   
• Waiting for the Thunder - by David Cookson - The man snuffs the green scent of rain on drought-dry earth. A light shower pecks at the tin roof. It is so still. They’ve forecast a storm. Absorbed, his wife reads. The phone rings.

Getting Hitched Fiction Archives

• First Date - by Nadine Cranenburgh - Black goo oozed from my tear duct as I fumbled for a cotton bud through a haze of misapplied mascara. I put my eyeliner pencil away unused. I have many talents, but make-up isn’t one of them.
   
• Reading the Signs - by S M Braint - She was new behind the counter. ‘Not seen you before,’ I said, trying to put her at ease as I handed over my card for petrol and the weekend papers. She blushed and fumbled the card as she tried to swipe it. Not experienced. I like that.
   
• Waiting for Colin - by Sue Radke - With a tear in her eye she waved until the ship was out of sight. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They’d barely been married a year.

• Recycled Love - by Natalie Hatch - 'They paid for it themselves you know.' This tidbit of information caused the appropriate gasps of horror from her two socialite friends, demanding to know how on earth they did it. 'Hold on, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, just keep your expensive knickers on,' Marnie waved them back.
   
• The Scent of Memories - by Owen Carmichael - The sculptor's studio was little more than a big shed and verandah in the bush, at the end of a dirt road. A log hut had been added to the side. Nothing was painted. A tall, slim man with a dark brown beard and piercing eyes answered her knock. There could be no hiding from those eyes.

• We Lost Our Way - by Félix Calvino - The man listens to Madame DuPont’s Bastille Day speech, then claps. He takes a glass of wine from a waiter’s tray and thinks about the woman with the long black hair and pale complexion he had seen earlier looking out the window facing the garden...

• City Girl by Sue Radke - A city girl! The cut of her clothes gave her away. Not trusty old work jeans like everyone else, a new designer pair. And with those nails she was a stranger to manual labour. Pity, she was quite a looker otherwise...
   
• Fresh Start by Lucy Meredith - Nearly home time, well that would’ve been good news normally, but today she really didn’t feel like going home to face the fury of her boyfriend Brian and resume the fight they’d started last night...
   
• Demon Lover by Jodi Cleghorn - My senses warn me to turn back now and go back to what I know. The embittered voice of experience weighs in, prompting me to remember my decision to give up love. It reminds me that love is fool’s gold and I can rise above it - I will be happier living without it...

• A Valentine Dance by Sue Radke - It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, maybe not good, interesting might be a better word, or even crazy...
   
• Mocha by Jennifer May - At 10:30 every morning Violet does the office coffee run. She gets the two skinny caps, one espresso, one frappuccino, two lattes, and a mocha from a nearby barista called Javier...