short stories – Prolific Pulse Blog

About the Author

Glennie Moore is a semi-retired substitute teacher who enjoys writing Christian fiction, weaving elements of the gospel in every story. She holds a B.A. in English from North Carolina State University and a Master of Divinity in Biblical Counseling from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She enjoys teaching Sunday School and Bible study as well as family gatherings, photography and observing nature.

About the Book

In Echoes of Destiny – Short Stories of the Unexpected, nothing is as it appears and everything changes once destiny arrives – unannounced. This collection of short stories and a novella explore what happens when life takes an irreversible turn and it’s the stranger we meet, the enemy we fear or the unseen spirits who guide us toward our destiny. Journey through time where the past collides with the present and the ordinary with the extraordinary.

In Inside the Flame, a woman escaping an abusive marriage seeks refuge in a cabin by the lake until an intruder on the property shatters her peace. But the stranger she holds at gunpoint rekindles a love she thought was lost forever.

In Unlikely Allies, two feuding coworkers are stranded on a desolate country road only to be “rescued” by a dangerous hate group. Can they put aside their grievances and trust one another in what becomes a literal fight for their lives.

In Picture Perfect, travel photographer, Kayla, on assignment in the beautiful Bahamas meets a grieving widower with his young daughter and finds unexpected love. But his heart is lost in the past until a benevolent spirit reveals the love they secretly share – in the perfect picture.

In The Unquiet Guest, Shoney Harris, owner of a bed and breakfast restored from an old plantation home, is visited by the ghost of an enslaved man seeking justice for a centuries old murder he never committed. Only Shoney can free him from the hidden lies of the past.

In Echoes of Destiny, the title novella, two infants who miraculously survive a tragic accident capture the townspeople in a cultic devotion and a prophecy declaring them bound by divine intervention. Decades later, their paths unexpectedly cross and they discover the destiny the townspeople spoke over them. Feeling the heavy mantle of expectation placed upon their heads, they must decide if their undeniable connection is one of true love or the lingering echoes of a past that won’t let go.

In this collection, stories of mystery, revelation, love, and the twist of fate, takes us on a journey that proves it is the unexpected that truly defines us.

What Others Have to Say

In Echoes of Destiny by Glennie Moore, strangers become lifelines, enemies become allies, and lives collide in unexpected ways when ordinary people face extraordinary moments. A woman frightened of an abusive marriage finds unexpected comfort beside a lonely lake. Two rivals trapped in a nightmare must depend on each other to survive. Mysterious prophecy binds two souls across decades. Filled with suspense, romance, heartbreak, and hope, this collection will leave readers questioning whether destiny is written or created by the choices we make.

Munmun Samanta author of Yellow Chrysanthemum

Echoes of Destiny by Glennie Moore is aptly named. As you read each story, you recognize a crossing of the future into the present. Each character has a specific purpose of revealing the secrets of the past and showing how they affect the present and the future. Each story shows the supernatural part of life that is out of our control. The collection of short stories and the novella will keep the lover of a love story tuned in.

G. Elaine Sneed – Customer Contact Specialist

These short stories are exceptionally well written, and the way suspense is built is breathtaking. Each story is phenomenal in its own right. Which one was my favorite? Honestly, I don’t know. Every time I finished one, I was convinced it was my favorite… until I read the next. Each story brought something fresh and compelling that made it hard to choose just one. Scripture was woven in perfectly.

What stood out most to me is how these stories highlight the value of relationships. They remind us not to minimize their importance. When relationships begin with strain, they can only get better. And when they begin well, they establish a standard for what greatness in relationships can look like. These stories beautifully echo what Glennie Moore says: “It is the unexpected that truly defines us.” That idea lingers long after the stories end. It causes me to reflect on my own relationships. I found myself asking: What will I do when the unexpected brings me joy? And how will I respond when my relationships bring unexpected sorrow?

Lori Jones Moss – Author of My Heavenly Father’s Eyes: A Relationship-Building Study, Mental Health and Professional Life Coach

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Celebrations, Poets & Events, short story, writing

A Celebration of Poetry

November 20, 2025 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

We gathered together on Tuesday night to celebrate prolific poetry. I thought I would share this event. There are some announcements included and more.

A Celebration of “Prolific Poets of 2025” #poetrylovers #poetry

We gathered together to celebrate many of the poetry books published in 2025 by Prolific Pulse Press LLC If you see a book or books you would like, the links follow each presenter below or go to https://www.prolificpulse.com/ Be sure to sign up for our mailing list! https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/1262629/142795590456050886/share

Roberta Batorsky is a Biology teacher and freelance science writer. Her poetry reflects her interest in people, their lived experiences and science. She lives in NJ with her husband and has 2 children and 2 grandchildren. she writes with empathy, knowledge and humor and has been published in Heron Clan, Fine Lines, NJ Bards, Delaware Valley Poets and other collections. This is her first book. https://www.prolificpulse.com/robertabatorsky #poetrycollection #poetsofnewjersey #perihelion

Loralee Clark is a writer who grew up learning a love for nature and her place in it, in Maine. She resides in Virginia now as a writer and artist, with two awesome kids and a loving husband. She writes poetry and non-fiction. Myth is her love language. https://www.prolificpulse.com/loraleeclark #myth #poetsofvirginia #solemnity #rites

Zaneta V. Johns is a world-class author of three poetry collections and What Matters Journal. She has co-authored five international bestselling collaborative books and co-edited three poetry anthologies. Johns is an editor of Fine Lines Journal and Women Speakers Association Poet Laureate. Johns resides in Colorado, USA. https://www.prolificpulse.com/zan-johns #poetlaureate #coloradopoets #colorado #awardwinningpoet #poetryeditor

Melissa Lemay lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with her children and cats. She writes about God, addiction, trauma, healing, motherhood, and many other things. She enjoys spending time with family, drinking good coffee, and being outdoors. She loves animals. Her poem, “Ephemeral,” was chosen as Poetic Publication of the Year for 2023 at Spillwords Press; she was Author of the Month for July 2024 and Author of the Year for 2024. Find her at melissalemay.wordpress, collaborature.blogspot, and at dVerse Poets Pub. https://www.prolificpulse.com/melissalemay #rengay #pennsylvaniapoets #poetrycollection #collaboration #humor

LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a dramatist, writer, and poet. A native New Yorker, LoSchiavo has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, Best of the Net, the IPPY Award, CLMP’s Firecracker Award, Balcones Poetry Prize, and Dwarf Stars. She is a member of Science Fiction Poetry Assoc., The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. She has won Two Awards for Cancer Courts My Mother. https://www.prolificpulse.com/lindaannloschiavo #cancer #grief #caregiving #parentchildrelationship #newyorkpoets #awardwinningpoet

Never until recently did Ken Tomaro consider writing poetry. Not when he slid from the womb. Not when he felt the first tingle of teen hormones. Not after he got married, divorced, moved to another city, lost a couple jobs, moved back. It just sort of happened. Ken Tomaro, self-proclaimed poet laureate of the Cleveland sewer system, has been writing poetry for a few short years. He’s not famous, rich, recognized or read in schools across America. He has been published in several literary journals, done a couple podcasts, started the YouTube channel, Screaming Down the Poetic Highway, and that’s pretty damn impressive. Ken Tomaro.com https://www.prolificpulse.com/kentomaro #poetry #lifesterms #contemporary #ohiopoets

Prolific Pulse Podcast

Book Reviews, short story

Peter Mladinic’s “The Light of Day,” a review of “Yellow Chrysanthemum”

August 2, 2025 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

The Light of Day, a review of Yellow Chrysanthemum by Munmun Samanta. Prolific Pulse LLC. Raleigh, North Carolina. 2025.

In “Sia’s Dream of Dawn” a woman is alone in a garden, thinking, and very attuned to her surroundings. Readers at first think she may be an artist and she’s going to paint the sky. As the story unfolds, readers learn she’s a writer, and it’s as if she’s giving the sky a story, with characters, a plot, a conflict to be developed, heightened, and resolved. And she is. And the sky’s story, like clouds in a river, mirrors the writers. It’s original, poetic, and well worth reading again. Yellow Chrysanthemum as a collection is a story of struggle. Sia “loves this part of the garden. But more than that she loves this confluence of light and shadow.” A struggle to be honest with herself. The collection comprises a struggle for freedom as an artist; for freedom as a wife, daughter, mother, sibling; and for freedom as a person, for equality. “But conventional society never teaches a woman to strike back,” the narrator says in “Written in Blood.”

The stories that depict artists, and scholars are: “Peacock’s Feather,” “Sia’s Dream of Dawn,” “Come Back Somlata,” “Long-forgotten Line,” “A Girl Made of Darkness,” which also involves an individual’s struggle to overcome a society’s prejudice; “Lullaby,” as it invokes the bonding of mother and daughter through song; and “Mad Woman in the Attic,” the story of a woman married to a man who is a successful writer and an emotionally cold, distant husband. His books show empathy for others, but the women in his books reject the woman, just as he does, so she burns his books (his women), and feels at peace.

Stories that involve the struggle of women as members of families are: “Mother India,” “The Caged Bird,” “The Scar,” “Beast of Burden,” “Bright Big Bananas,” “Written in Blood,” and “Uproot.” “Mother India,” the first story in the collection is about hunger and poverty, a mother’s plight to feed herself and her children. It is very visceral; readers feel the hunger in it, and the mother’s desperation. “Uproot,” also about a mother, is contemplative. Should the protagonist stay where she is, or give into her married son’s wish that she leave her home, her job of teaching very young children, and go far away to live with him and his wife? Like “Sia’s Dream …” “Uproot” is a garden story. It begins with Sumita telling the children how a monkey-gardener uprooted trees, to analyze how much water they needed. The children are as delighted with their teacher as she is them, and in the end the story comes back to the garden.

While “Special Dish” has shades of scholastic research, it is primarily a story of the bonding of two women from different classes in society. “A Home of One’s Own,” while it involves family, depicts the plight of women in society at large, a society that says in its morays and traditions that women have no home, the home is the man’s. And in this story, there’s this wonderful sentence: “People say many things, but things are different.” Other stories that involve a woman’s struggle for equality are: “Uma,” “The Kitten and Cleopatra,” and “The Shut Door.” In all these, the plight of one woman is the plight of many.

In “The Shut Door” the narrator says, “It happens sometimes you cannot recognize yourself.” All twenty stories have the unstated adage “be honest with yourself.” Each is an attempt to arrive at some truth. Some stories seem sketched in gray pencils, others in dark blue ink. The light of day is the page on which the story appears. Labels limit. The struggle of the artist, the wife and mother, and the individual all intersect, or seem to, many of them. But in each the author, Munmun Samanta has made a thing of beauty, from her imagination, her vision, and her skill with words. These are stories that ring true; stories of India, of women, of lived lives.

Open her book and see for yourself. You’ll be rewarded. ProlificPulse.com

Peter Mladinic‘s most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock is available from UnCollected Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.

Maiden Rock: Mladinic, Peter: 9798990558557: Amazon.com: Books

Announcements, Book Announcements, book launch, books, Celebrations, Short Fiction, short story, writing

ANNOUNCEMENT! Yellow Chrysanthemum by Munmun “Sam” Samanta is Now Available

April 14, 2025 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

Set in contemporary India, “Yellow Chrysanthemum” is a stirring collection celebrating the lives of Durga, Uma, Tihar, Somlata, Mridula, and fifteen other women from rural villages to bursting cities. These women are not passive victims but survivors and warriors who have the courage to challenge the status quo of society, which always seeks to silence their voices.

As the author, I wrote this book to pay my homage to the women who continue challenging society’s oppressive forces. If you are in search of a book that will both challenge and inspire you, “Yellow Chrysanthemum” is a top pick. Take part in the celebration of women’s voices, a call for justice, and a reminder of the incredible power that exists within us all to rise above, no matter the odds.
Munmun Samanta

~Storytelling, Truth-telling

The commodity of these twenty stories is the struggle of a woman as an artist, as a family member, and as an individual in society. In “Written in Blood,” which concludes the collection, Asima, the protagonist, says, “But conventional society never teaches a woman to strike back.” In every story, the author strikes back forcefully and eloquently, in sentences that are as poignant as they are poetic. “Mother India, which begins the collection, is about poverty, hunger, and a mother’s determination to feed herself and her children. It’s a visceral story, one feels as they read. In “The Caged Bird,” Tihar,” trapped in a repressive marriage, identifies with the bird she sets free. And in “The Dawn of Sia’s Dream,” the “confluence of light and shadow” that the writer-protagonist loves may be seen as the conflict that drives her story, as if her story is also the sky’s. Its underlying theme is the imagination’s power to transcend, a theme also in ” A Girl Made of Darkness, about an artist who has struggled with society’s prejudice of people, like her, with dark skin. Each story in the collection is an integral part of the whole and told in a voice that arrives in each instance at some truth. Yellow Chrysanthemum establishes Munmun Samanta as a topnotch writer of fiction not only in India but also throughout the world.

– Peter Mladinic, Author of “Files of Information for People who Don’t Exist”

Mumnum Samanta’s short story collection, “Yellow Chrysanthemum,” is a treasure chest of joy and strength that springs from the neglect, abuse, betrayal, and invisibility of 20 women. These women are flowers in a hostile world that crushes them underfoot. Yet somehow, they take root and bloom.

We only need the eyes to see what we take for granted. This book will open those eyes.

– Nolcha Fox, author of “End of Earth”

Yellow Chrysanthemum is available at online stores.

Short Fiction, short story

The Question

March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

sky earth galaxy universe — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Squirming restlessly in his seat, he knew he was in trouble with the lesson for this day.

Questioning every one of the questions on the board, he struggled with analyzing what the teacher wanted to know.

Calling his name, the time had come to go to the board and answer the third question: Who is the first lady? As he struggled with the right answer, someone was whispering from the sidelines, distracting him, but trying to be helpful.

Grasping the chalk tightly in his sweat saturated hand, he tapped on the board with the chalk before writing, “Eve.”

Schoolmates let out giggles and the teacher even had a slight smile on her usual stern face before she said, I mean of this country.

“Heck,” he said, “I oughta get extra credit ‘cause I’s thinkin’ of the whole world!”

The whole class then burst out in laughter and the teacher had to agree that on this day, there was no questioning that the world could use another Eve.

…..

There you have it with this weeks 6 Sentence Story.

Rules of the hop:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word.
Link the URL to your post via the blue “Click here to enter” button below .
Spread the word and put in a good one to your fellow writers 😀

PROMPT WORD: QUESTION

Want to participate Here’s the LINK