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Free S Stories
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(Editor’s note: this post was updated in August, 2021, with current links to all stories.) When I have no idea what to read, I find a bunch of free short stories online, save them onto the Pocket app , and read them as if I’ve compiled my own short story collection. Like a music playlist I create to match a mood, I create short story playlists to break a book slump, or to sample a bunch of different authors’ writing.
As to where to find great stories, The New Yorker stories are generally best, but require a subscription if you read too many in a month. I also like Narrative Magazine , which will ask you for an email, but their stories are free too. Tor of course has some great free stuff, and you can find most of the classics through Gutenberg . The stories on this list that are not from any of these publications, I found through simple Google searches. If I’m interested in an author, but don’t necessarily want to read a whole book, I look to see if they have any short fiction available that I can read first.
From this list, my favorites are Zadie Smith and Italo Calvino’s stories. I’d never read Zadie Smith, but after loving “The Embassy of Cambodia” I started On Beauty (a 500 page book) and I absolutely love it. Both stories satisfied a reading itch I needed scratched.
Here are a few of my favorite free short stories you can read online right now.
The world is a library that contains all the books that have ever been written, but most of them are indecipherable. Many people venture to the library to find the meaning of life. It reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld library.
“Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species—the unique species—is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.”
This used to be my favorite short story, and I might only think that because I read it when I was a freshman in high school and I remember being shocked by the ending. It’s always stayed with me.
Another story with an ending that you won’t forget anytime soon. O’Connor was a master. If you’ve never read any of her work I would start here.
It’s a chilling story. A man known as the Traveller is visiting a foreign penal colony where he is shown a special machine used to execute prisoners. The machine inscribes the prisoner’s crime onto their body until they die (kind of sounds familiar if you’ve read the fifth Harry Potter book). It takes twelve hours of torture before the prisoner dies. I told you it was chilling!
Kai Ashante Wilson has quite a talent. This ties present day police brutality towards African Americans to post-emancipation America and a family of freed slaves that are living with the Devil that followed them from Africa.
Cities, once they are old enough, must be born. New York City is ready to be born, and must be led into the world by a reluctant midwife.
Okorafor is a wonderful storyteller, and if you’ve never read her books, this would be a great place to start. And if you like this short story, Binti: The Complete Trilogy was released in February!
Oh, you’ve never read Ted Chiang? Well, you must go out now and read this story and then read Stories of Your Life and Others and his new collection Exhalation: Stories , which comes out in May. I was shocked by how good and complex his writing was. I had no idea that the movie The Arrival was based on one of his short stories.
I don’t know. It’s either Zadie Smith’s “The Embassy of Cambodia” or this story that is my favorite on the list… I can’t decide. I think it’s this story. A story about the people of Earth deciding to throw away the Moon. It’s a story of consumerism. Luckily, I own “ The Complete Cosmicomics “, so I can continue reading Calvino’s magnificent short story collection.
After you read “The Devil in America” read this story and see if you can find the parallels. This was my first time reading Zadie Smith because I’d always heard mixed reviews, but if her longer fiction is anything like this short story, I’m in love. If you need help figuring out where to start with Zadie Smith’s books, check out our Reading Pathway guide to Zadie Smith .
A prelude to Morrison’s book God Help the Child , this is the story of Bride’s mother, and her rationale for raising her daughter in a loveless home.
“This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth. Black means all the way.”
The first four sentences of this short story sent chills down my spine. A superbly told story of the extremes of girlhood and adolescence; the pressures girls face as they get older.
Love at first sight, if you believe love is predestined rather than a choice. Fated love, to me, no matter how hard my heart becomes, still seems ridiculously romantic. I haven’t read Murakami in a long time but now I’m itching to pick up one of his books (I really want to read 1Q84 , but it’s soooo long!).
This was Anthony Marra’s first published short story, and works as an outline for his novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon . It’s the kind of story you read while holding your breath.
This story was written in 1997 before the publication of The Vegetarian . The two stories share many of the same themes, and it’s evident that this story served as a blueprint for the later book. In “The Fruit of My Woman” the wife is slowly turning into a tree (something that also comes up in The Vegetarian ). The allusions to Daphne turning herself into a laurel tree to escape the advances of Apollo are hard to miss, but there’s no clear indication that Daphne was an actual influence on either story. Han Kang can do no wrong in my eyes.
I love Sarah Gailey. This is a great introduction if you’re unfamiliar with her work. It’s Victorian London with androids—so much to love!
A hot and bothered story about a house falling in love with the girl who lives in the attic. I loved everything about this story. This is included in Johnson’s short story collection, Fen , and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Also, the writing style reminded me of Samantha Hunt.
Breece D’J Pancake died when he was 26. He was from West Virginia, and I would label his writing “grit-lit”. This story was almost too gritty for me. He’s the kind of writer that other writers love. His short story collection has a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates.
Want more short stories? Check out our post on the 100 best short story collections!
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These are some of the best short stories around, and what makes them even more delightful is the fact that every one is absolutely free. If you love to read this article is just right for you.
“Mikhail lived a large portion of his life in that state of mind in which you take a risk and deny the risk at the same time, out of rage.”
This story is about three brothers caught up in the horrific disaster that happened at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. The startling consequences of the disaster make for a dramatic backdrop, as the brothers deal with the aftermath of the nuclear meltdown. “The Zero Meter Diving Team” is available for free, from BOMB magazine.
“Titania was the only one among them ever to have ridden on a roller coaster, but she didn’t offer up the experience as an analogy, because it seemed insufficient to describe a process that to her felt less like a violent unpredictable ride than like someone ripping your heart out one day and then stuffing it back in your chest the next.”
“A Tiny Feast” is for those who love fairy folk. In the story, a toddler is exchanged for a hobgoblin, but the tiny child has a very serious illness. The story is available for free from The New Yorker .
“He taunted me about playing in the mud, as he called it, breaking chunks of iron ore with my hammer.”
“Lorry Raja” is a short story about children and families in India. These families were coerced into forced labor to mine for iron to build the Olympic stadium in China. It is available to read from The Narrative Magazine. You will be required to submit an email address to access the full story.
“She spread the bullets on the table and moved them about, making designs and shapes and patterns with them, playing with them as if they were draughts or dominoes or precious stones.”
The “Bluebell Meadow” is set during the Troubles in Ireland. It is about two teenagers that although in love have the chasm of religious ideals between them. It is available for free from Google Books .
“That Saturday: it landed in the apartment looted by the present and filled it with blasting amazement, the presence of the past.”
A woman discovers a shocking secret about her mother in “The Beneficiary.” The story is available for free from The New Yorker.
“That is my problem with life, I just rush through it, like I’m being chased.”
This is a creepy and very short tale. It is available for free from Scribd .
“He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders—a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed.”
A normal day in a bank turns to terror very quickly. You can find “Bullet In The Brain” at no cost here.
“Lou is a man who cannot tolerate defeat—can’t perceive it as anything but a spur to his own inevitable victory.”
“Safari” is about a dysfunctional group of people who go on an African safari. The story is quite poignant in its telling. It is available from The New Yorker.
“I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.”
This story is set in Spain and is a conversation between a man and a woman waiting for a train. Ernest Hemingway liked to couch his stories with analogies. This story is no different. It is available to read for free here.
“She continued to cry, but it seemed to have grown so silent in my room I wondered if I could hear the numbers change on my digital clock.”
This is a coming of age story. A girl entering college questions her culture, her sexuality, and more. The story is available for free from The New Yorker .
“On a knoll in the ridge, run there by the dogs, the bobcat watched, waiting for the man to leave.”
This story is available through The Atlantic for free. The story is about a group of coal miners and the way they deal with the dangers of coal mining.
“She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.”
The story is one of several short stories from Joyce’s The Dubliners and is available for free. The story is about a young woman having second thoughts about leaving her homeland of Ireland.
“In its own way this correspondence would fulfill his dream, of serving as an interpreter between nations.”
Ms. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for this story in 2000. The story is about a family visiting India and their tour guide. The story is available for free here.
“The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun. ”
A great read by one of the most brilliant science fiction authors ever, Ray Bradbury. The story is set on Venus and centers on the children of those who have settled there. It can be downloaded at no cost here .
“With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left—the wet—hand back and forth through the air.”
This is a story about an atypical day at the beach. The entire book can be downloaded for free here.
“Unless it was Kitty’s coldness, her always turning away, her sarcastic voice. But she was a teenager, and that’s what teenagers did.”
The story revolves around the tumultuous teen years, although the child in the story is in her late twenties. The father reminisces about his daughter’s adolescent years. The story can be read for free here.
“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone …”
Aliens make a hilarious discovery. The story was nominated for the Nebula award in 1991. The story can be read for free here.
“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?”
A story of a young woman’s descent into madness after the birth of her child. The user can choose which format to download. Available for free here.
“We say hello—at times somebody recognizes me, at other times I recognize somebody—and we promptly start asking about this one and that one (even if each remembers only a few of those remembered by the others), and so we start in again on the old disputes, the slanders, the denigrations.”
This is a very short story that revolves around the very beginning of the universe. The story is available for free.
“I could only focus on you: your syncopated step, your forward lean, the way your legs seemed to disappear amidst the tables as you glided across the room.”
“Italy” is a bittersweet tale about a couple during many years of marriage. The story can be read for free here.
“Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that … that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems … and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible.”
A story about an unusual school dealing with a rather mundane subject. The story can be read for free.
“The Condemned Man, incidentally, had an expression of such dog-like resignation that it looked as if one could set him free to roam around the slopes and would only have to whistle at the start of the execution for him to return.”
A man is condemned to die in a most unusual manner. Read the story for free .
“After eliminating a number of articles that might offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line, for instance, was taboo), his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle—a basket with ten different fruit jellies in ten little jars.”
“But surely a corpse wants that, not a man. And I hear that our intellectuals have a longing for the land and want to acquire farms. But it all comes down to the six feet of land.”
A story about two brothers reestablishing themselves after their father’s death. The story is available here .
“ But she’s not bitter. Sometimes she’s so nonbitter it gets on my nerves.”
A story about an aunt who refuses to stay dead. The story is available for free .
“But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic.”
A story about the price of utopia. The story is available for free here .
The story is about a murderous room. You can read it for free here .
“Her hair that was as light as milkweed fluff had gone from pale blond to white somehow without Grant’s noticing exactly when, and she still wore it down to her shoulders, as her mother had done”
The story is about a professor’s wife losing her memory. It was later adapted into a film, Away From Her . The story can be found in The New Yorker .
“Ivan Yakovlevitch donned a jacket over his shirt for politeness’ sake, and, seating himself at the table, poured out salt, got a couple of onions ready, took a knife into his hand, assumed an air of importance, and cut the roll open. Then he glanced into the roll’s middle. To his intense surprise he saw something glimmering there. He probed it cautiously with the knife — then poked at it with a finger.”
Two men awake to a very distressing morning. The story can be found here.
“Days we spent in the mall or out in the parking lot playing stickball, but nights were what we waited for.”
A young man returns home from college only to find many things have changed. Read for free.
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Enjoy our collection of free bedtime stories for kids:
Why read Bedtime Stories to my child each night?
Our Stories to Grow by Collection of Famous Children's Stories
Enjoy our entire collection of short stories for kids.
Our children's stories come from folktales (or folk tales), stories that have been shared from generation to generation by word of mouth, from all over the world. Folktales have been shared for thousands of years and are the starting point for most of your favorite tales and Disney movies. This collection of stories for kids has stories which are 10+ min and are for a longer reading experience or for older children. All of our stories for kids have positive morals and teach important values such as friendship, kindness and gratitude.
Our children's folktale stories consist of fairy tales, animal tales, riddles stories, myths and legends,from all over the world!
Our stories for kids are kid-tested to ensure read time, reading level, and kid-approval. They are multicultural and feature positive moral messages. Share our short stories for kids with those children in your life and share the joy and love we have for stories and storytelling.
© 2022 Stories to Grow by, a nonprofit organization. All Rights Reserved.
Short stories for kids, bedtime stories, fairy tales, online story books, audio stories, and more!
Stories to Grow By is PRAISED & RECOMMENDED BY: Scholastic, USA Today, The New York Times & Education World.
The Classic fairytale of Cinderella: a young girl, mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters, who finds out that dreams really can come true.
The Classic Fairytale Story of Snow White with a Modern Twist: Who is the “fair”est of them all? Snow White of course!
A Bedtime Story of Honesty, Courage and Truth. If Pinocchio is to become a Real boy he needs to learn how to be honest, brave and true.
A Grimm’s Brother Tale: A miller tells a tale that his daughter can turn straw into gold. A strange little man is willing to help…for a price. Guess his name and he will be gone…but what is his name?
Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids. Goldilocks finds the three bears cottage in the woods. Should she make herself comfortable?
Hansel and Gretel Bedtime Stories for Kids. When Hansel and Gretel go in search of food, they find a gingerbread house. But who is inside?
A Story of Friendship, Love and Courage. Rapunzel’s Story ~ A Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale. An evil witch has trapped Rapunzel in a tower. Can her long hair or love save her?
A Story of Courage
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