Archive for April 2019

The Master Storyteller 2017-18 Six students from the CHESS program Master StoryTeller class of 2017-18 in Manassas, Virginia, welcome you to explore their 37 short stories. A fan-favorite sword fight. Atmospheric experiments with tone and mood. A realistic and compelling research-based story. An unexpected collaborative story planned in only 30-minutes, and written, as a group,…

The Master Storyteller 2010-11 The Master StoryTeller class of 2010-11 from Gainesville,Virginia, welcomes you to explore their year of writing shortstory fiction. A fan-favorite sword fight. Contemporary fiction. A 100-wordcontest. Cautionary tales about making deals with the devil.Alien worlds and alternative perspectives.It’s all right here. It’s all student work. It’s all fun.Enjoy!

Newsboy Empire Orphaned and living hand to mouth, Jimmy Small is one of hundreds of boys working Newspaper Row near the dangerous Five Points intersection, a nexus for gambling, alcohol and brawls in the summer of 1907 New York City.At night, Jimmy dreams of owning his own newsstand. Sleeping in a garbage-littered alley, he awakens…

Treachery On The Great Lakes Orphaned at the age of fifteen, Nat Morton finds work as a longshoremen on the Chicago docks in 1899. Before his father’s untimely death, they had traveled regularly on a lumber barge across the Great Lakes. Now, Nat yearns to become a boat pilot. With the mystery of a lost…

A City Of Lies Christine Thompson and Adam Vestry are Providentially reunited four years following their first adventure in The Invisible Empire. The year is 1876. Chicago, just five years after the Great Fire, continues to rebuild its reputation as Queen of the West. The nation stands on the threshold of greatness, and a hope…

Invisible Empires Josiah Washington, a sixteen-year-old former slave, longs to experience the true meaning of freedom in 1870’s Philadelphia. An act of kindness sets Josiah at odds with ADAM VESTRY, the seventeen-year-old son of an influential white newspaperman who is secretly plotting to bring the Ku Klux Klan into the North.Deeply hurt and frustrated by…

A Trail Of Tears Daniel Sweetwater is a sixteen-year-old Delaware Indian living with his preacher father among the Cherokee in 1838. He and his father are forced to march with the last remnants of the Cherokee nation on a 1000-mile journey from their homes in Georgia to a reservation in the Oklahoma Territory. Cruel men…

Race For The Skies Struggling to make his way, 15-year old Andy Nelson is a gifted mechanic in a 1910 Midwest town. He finds a wallet, but his greedy boss, Seth Talbot, wants the money. Andy refuses, banks the money to keep it safe until he can find the rightful owner, and hides the empty…

Pony Express Pursuit Excited by his new position as a Pony Express rider, 16-year-old Jack Bailey of Rainbow Ridge, Colorado, has no idea of a coming danger that will fall upon him and his community. Their trial comes in the summer of 1890 when Jack is tasked with receiving and delivering a very important document…

Wreckers Of The Reefs Kidnapped at birth by an evil uncle in 1879, Lucas escapes to freedom with the help of a kindly captain of a merchant ship. He soon becomes a cabin boy and the captain’s protégé. But as the ship makes its way up the Carolina coast in 1895, a terrible storm strikes.…