The Ink Well Highlights Magazine #1 (March 25, 2021)

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This weekly magazine serves to highlight short stories posted to The Ink Well community that stood out and were awarded a high level Curie vote. The stories shared in this post represent some of the best creative writing posted to Hive. Please do check out the highlighted posts and show your support.

For those new to Hive, @curie is one of the major curation guilds. The curie team works diligently behind the scenes to ensure exceptional content is rewarded. The Ink Well is part of curie's community support program, allowing us to reward well-crafted stories with higher post payouts. The @curie account rewards all categories of high quality content on Hive, so if you want to check out the best of the best, it's a good place to start. Visit the @curie homepage here.

All liquid rewards from The Ink Well highlights magazine and the weekly fiction prompt are used for community operational expenses.

Featured Author: @justclickindiva
The Making of a Man | The Ink Well Weekly Fiction - Week 6 - Prompt: 51

Images property of @justclickindiva

I held back tears. I hadn't asked for this. I thought I was a good person who lived a decent life. The question everyone asks wouldn't give me any peace? The phone just sat there urging me to answer. I was silent for a moment, then "we need to talk" rushed out and must have sounded urgent than I intended. -@justclickindiva

It was a pleasure to read this story. Your father sounds like an amazing man, someone who was a strong role model for you.You are skillful at leading us through the different stages of acceptance in this tragedy. Loss of a limb. Many people can't imagine it. But the unimaginable happens all the time. You have given us a glimpse of how someone can live with the unimaginable. -@agmoore

Featured Author: @brittandjosie
I went to the library , and books attacked me ......!

Images property of @brittandjosie

Dust particles flutter through the air and sparkle in the yellowish light. A masculine voice addresses me with an authoritarian tone that makes me look up. Bad idea. I can only see in the light for a second and have only seen something square and dark.

"Who are you? How do you know my name? Why do I have this day-mare, nightmares I know but this is scary too." A squeaking sound escapes from the books next to me and all the books slide back an inch.
“ I am the Librarian, ghost of letters, Why are you only taking one book?" -@brittandjosie

Lively, entertaining dialogue you provide. Readers are sympathetic with the narrator, even though it is a highly unlikely book war described. This story demonstrates the truth that a skilled writer can make any scene credible. -@theinkwell

Featured Author: @agmoore
The Library: Prompt #7

Images property of @agmoore

"No," Emissary said. "Not your grandmother. She rests, peacefully. This nebula is your grandmother's dreams. All the dreams she had from childhood. Her dreams as she aged. As she evolved. These dreams, all dreams, are in this Library. People who had glorious dreams, who followed these dreams and fulfilled them have left that energy for all of us. The Library is a repository for ambition, courage and hope. -@agmoore

A beautiful concept, artfully expressed agmoore. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this short story succeeded in reaching for something sublime and effusive, the library of dreams... a vision of an afterlife? A repository of inspiration? There were parts in this story that made this gruff Scouser blink back a few tears. Very well done. -@raj808

Featured Author: @bruno-kema
Mad Horses, Mad People

Images property of @bruno-kema

The thoroughbred was prancing nervously, still full of adrenaline and wanting to do away with the excess energy. The rider stroked it's neck, soothing it till it was calm.That was when Madam Paula turned.

She studied the man on the horse, the other riderless horse, and the man on the bike a couple of feet away. She knew them all. -@bruno-kema

This is such an effective action scene. It's not easy to build action with the written word. The temptation to weigh down the scene with verbiage sometimes gets the best of authors. But you cut the description to the bone. It's almost visual in effect. Very good job. -@agmoore

Featured Author: @amirtheawesome1
Flower Girl

Images property of @amirtheawesome1

"Some man screamed at me when I tried to sell him a flower", she said with tears streaming down her face "I don't know what I did that was wrong. He just yelled at me and when I was walking back I had to go in front of his car and he just honked so I fell out of my slippers and dropped my flowers. He drove over them, tearing my slippers and breaking my flowers."

I was staring at her as she was crying and looking at me for answers about why someone would be so cruel. I wonder what I could do to make her feel better. -@amirtheawesome1

This story broke my heart right in two, amirtheawesome1. It is poignant and beautifully told. The little urchin's sad life and sad end are so touching. The narrator's telling, complete with the little lies he tells himself and others to make the story more palatable and less tragic really add a layer of depth to the tale. Well done. -@jayna

Thank you for reading our weekly magazine.

We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 & @stormlight24, and run by @jayna and @agmoore.

We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.

Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/

A big thank you to all our delegations from:
@felt.buzz @shanibeer @jayna @ocd-witness @kaelci @trucklife-family @preparedwombat @iamraincrystal @owasco @agmoore and @marcybetancourt.

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