Free Short Stories to Read Online

Short, complete stories you can finish in one sitting, from gentle bedtime stories to westerns, horror and mysteries. Free to read, no sign-up, new stories every day.

Latest Short Stories

New
Western
One Broken Violin String Against the Rio Grande
- 7 min read
- Audio
An aging fisherman must deliver three hundred sheep and honor a dying friend’s impossible promise.
New
Kids
Pip Takes a Sunflower Seed on Flying Lessons
- 3 min read
- Read aloud
- Ages 5–8
A young owl’s first flying passenger keeps slipping away before they reach the garden stump.
New
Detective Fiction
The Napkin Map Beneath the Kimchi Fridge
- 6 min read
A teacher follows his abducted son into a scandal his wife died exposing.
New
Sad
Don Ignacio’s Umbrella Above the River Regulator
- 10 min read
A stolen umbrella shelters rivalry, invention, and dangerous floodwater on the pampas.
New
Horror
The Napkin Map Beneath Nico’s Glass
- 9 min read
A vanished brother returns with a debt only Amsterdam’s dead can collect.
New
Christmas
Yuna’s Strawberry Jam in the Nurse’s Office
- 12 min read
- Ages 12–16
A fired doctor, a sick alto, and one awful jar bind a school together.
New
Bedtime
Baatar’s Blue Kite and the Silver Fish Lie
- 9 min read
- Ages 6–10
An empty basket, a broken kite, and one tender lie grow too heavy.
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Contemporary
Chicharrón and the Sugar Skull Named Ramiro
- 16 min read
A guilty doctor follows a thieving cat into a town’s deadliest lie.

More new stories

Bedtime Stories Read Aloud

Press play and listen together: gentle stories for children, read aloud. Also as a podcast: Spotify Apple Podcasts Amazon Music

All bedtime stories

Western Short Stories

Outlaws, lawmen, cattle drives and dusty frontier towns.

All western stories

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