Brett Jonas

From dueling families to an insane asylum, these short stories are... twisted.

During the autumn of 2016, the team behind the Chapter One Young Writers Conference mentored two talented young writers through the publishing process, giving them a head start on becoming the successful authors of tomorrow. Now, read the stories on which these up-and-coming writers worked, along with four by the Ch1Con mentors themselves.

Each of these stories comes with a twist. You'll never see what's coming next.

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I shouldn't have answered the phone. Mom was going on and on and on about this boy she wanted me to meet and how he'd just moved down by me to go to my college, and I should date him, because he was her best friend's son or something like that and "you should see him with his shirt off," and-- whoa. Really, Mom?

I sighed and tucked my phone between my ear and shoulder. "Mom."

"What, honey?"

"Do you know how many people named Brown there could be here? Or heck, even Joshes. I know at least five of them, just from college. Chances are, we'll never run into each other, and you and Maggie will just have to live with that. I've got a date with someone else tonight, anyway."

“Just keep him in mind, honey.” Mom sighed. She wanted grandkids, and had never been shy about telling me that, unfortunately.

“Okay, Mom. Maybe we’ll find each other, and maybe we’ll become a thing.”

“You should.”

“Maybe.” My doorbell rang and I sighed. "That's probably the maintenance man coming to fix the leaky drain he’s already ‘fixed’ three times. I'll talk to you later."

"Love you, sweetie."

"Love you too."

My socks slid along the linoleum as I hung up and tucked my phone into my back pocket. I undid the latch and opened the front door, only to stop short when the man who appeared was definitely not Bill, our building's janitor and handyman.

"Um, hi," he said, brown eyes meeting mine. "I just wanted to come over and introduce myself. I'm Josh, your new neighbor."

Of course he was a Josh. Make that six Joshes I knew who weren’t Maggie’s son.

Oh, wait, this must be the source of all the banging next door. It wasn't actually a herd of elephants?

"I'm Kassidy," I said, opening the door the rest of the way. "Want to come in?"