fresh flash
fiction &
modern fables
“I think it’s a deficiency… You know, if you can’t get what you need nat-ural-ly, you go about the wrong places for getting it.”
Flash Fiction
DELICATES“It could be another meticulous set-up by Laura. Just possibly something good had happened. Either way, my curiosity won out.”
Flash Fiction
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
"I go straight to the ladies’ lounge without opening my coat. There’s no point in wearing anything underneath."
Short Story
The Changing Room
Little cons and crimes for your reading pleasure.
This Noir-vember, discover stories of dangerous dames. In Delicates, a tenuous relationship begins at a late-night laundromat. In Smoke and Mirrors, a struggling author seems to have become successful when he’s asked to participate in a series of peculiar book signings. And in The Changing Room, things go awry when an ambitious young woman infiltrates an exclusive country club.
Explore more good reads in our library of stories fantastic and domestic or listen to The Story Coterie podcast.Stories Fantastic
Discover modern fables of beauties, beasties and unearthly wonders.
Read more...I’m not a snitch. Even when I was a Body, serving my time – which, funnily enough, seemed like an eternity – I never dropped a dime on another Body. Never reduced my sentence or improved my comfort by betraying my cellmate or one of the punk Bodies still dealing on the outside. I’m free now…...Read more...I don't cotton much to superstition. The world is so complex as it is, so full of marvels, I can't see adding any other conditions to what nature's already given. Most others here, though, seem to make things as complicated as possible. So many imaginary rules about what one must always and never...Read more...Kid Callahan had been hitting the heavy bags since he was six. He’d started out coming to the gym twice a week with his pop. Ten years later, the Kid was training six days a week. He had become ropy and lean, faster than most of the the muscle-bound pugs he fought, but still looked very much a...More PostsStories Domestic
Discover fresh short fiction about everyday heartbreak and other crimes.
Read more...There was nothing natural about it. The chrome and enamel and melamine were too bright for the hour and too clean for the neighborhood. All-Nite Kennedy Launderette pink neon tubing looped in enthusiastic cursive. A black kid with jawbreaker-size plastic hair baubles peered in the washer windows...Read more...Acrimonious. That was the word for it. Laura had taken just about everything from our walk-up flat – and what she’d left behind was more cruel. The Murphy bed was still secured to the wall. The Olivetti I’d typed on since college held no interest to her. But more than three hundred paperback...Read more...I take 24 in the corner. But I won’t tell you what I keep in it yet. You really don’t need to bring anything here. In the atrium, there is always hot tea and yerba maté, fresh fruit and a crisp stack of magazines. The girls provide a warm robe and slippers and a little brass key that matches a...
- The Story Coterie Podcast
A new audio home for modern fables and fresh flash fiction is waiting for you.
Learn more and listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, PocketCasts or RadioPublic.
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Listen to one of our favorite episodes.
About Us
a columbary of lovely and amazing tales
What is StoryCote?
At StoryCote, half of our tales are fantastic. These fables span the adventures of selkies, saints, lycanthropes and even superheroes. The other fables are domestic, spanning the adventures of mere humans, but still from a fabulist’s perspective. All are told in the lyric, lovely and aching way only we know how to tell them.
Discover restless characters, from fairies to farm wives to socialites, all searching for better lives. Unlock the secret to each escape: in the back room of a near-future perfumery, by an imposter at a posh country club, on a cruise ship boarded by hungry pirates, and in many more heart-breaking tales. From the domestic to the fantastic, each tender fable is complete in 2,500 words or less.
StoryCote was founded by writer Candace Leigh Coulombe to share the incredible value of flash fiction and fables in an ever-hectic daily life. Join us for fresh fiction each week through the StoryCote website, podcast and social media. Enjoy the satisfaction of a complete story experience during a quick coffee break. Sneak a secret story during your workday.
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All contents copyright © 2006 - 2026 Candace L. Coulombe. All rights reserved. For reprints and permissions, contact StoryCote.