Pen Factor stories

Explore stories on The Pen Factor. Search for favourite authors or titles, browse by genre or use the filters to find your favourite story.

The Baby-doll

This story is about a family whose children fail to bear progeny. It's like a jinx. Things change overnight when the patriarch...

Paranormal fiction / Magic realism

Priya Swaminathan

Clinkscales

This short story is based on a fictional account of a campus shooting.

Literary fiction

Whitney Hubbard

Chapter 1

Six high school students face they're worst test yet-A survival test. Join Kathy, Johnny, Jackson, Lillian, Alexandra, and Devin...

Action / Adventure

Kathy Honda

Muffins and a Sweet Tart

Dave visits a neighborhood cafe for a blueberry muffin and is surprised with a lemony tart.

Literary fiction

James Wassom

Racine - Part Three

Racine absconds from the orphanage and takes up a life of petty crime until Father Paulo rescues him from a rather unpleasant,...

Literary fiction

Dreyfus

Time

A man driving home, as he normally does, experiences a few odd events confusing him during what he thought would be a normal night,...

Horror

Sam Mitchell

Could it be?

Guess you will have to find out.

Horror

Mythex

Nature's Hourglass

A Lion leaves his pride, the story finds him as he sits beneath a tree and considers the things he has done in his life. When...

Flash fiction

Victoria Hestia

Mr

An introspective traveler's tale of cockfighting and prostitution

Literary fiction

Phil Kimmins

Meeting His Holiness

Pope Francis meets Marco.

Flash fiction

Marco Ocram

Revenge is Necessary Chapter 7.

With the investigation into the murder of Sir Arthur Kingsward underway, DCI Marsden and DS Rosie Barnes find a warped type of...

Crime / Suspense / Mystery / Thriller

G. Rosalyn West

Beyond the Cabin

This allegory revolves around the life of a growing boy. In his life, surrounded by nature’s wonders he sees the effects of...

Literary fiction

Thomas Asama

The New World

Alex, a seventeen year old girl, is going on a life changing trip to England with her older sister for her birthday. Around the...

Fantasy / Sci-fi

Alicia D.

Father's Spirit Saves Silvia

The mother of a child in trouble wrestles with the emotional effects of intervention while learning that her father has collapsed...

Literary fiction

Perry Shepard

The Stroy of Jazzabelle

Her mother is dead, her father injured, and her uncle has made claims that her best friend has done it. She has an appetite for...

Action / Adventure

Keonna Hunt

A Break in Time

Ross Wilson is a prodigy in both science and math. Unfortunately, he's never able to put this talent to good use other than school....

Fantasy / Sci-fi

Ash H.

Things They Say

An episode from WW1 recounted from a highly unusual point of view

Literary fiction

Still-born

Thirty seconds of a conversation.

Flash fiction

Chris Connolly

The Voices

The Voices is a literary pastiche based on what it feels like as a creative. I wrote the piece to explain the intense emotional...

Flash fiction

Christopher Ryan

Luna

Luna Cantara, a twenty-four year old girl brought up on the outskirts of a post-apocalyptic and advanced technology city named...

Fantasy / Sci-fi

Dhasanne Nydoo

Writer of the Month

Ian Andrew grew up in the coastal town of Larne, Northern Ireland. He left to join the Royal Air Force at age 18 and worked initially as an aircraft technician before being commissioned as an Intelligence Officer. After serving for two decades he relocated, with his Australian wife, to the rural South West of Western Australia. Surrounded by a resident mob of kangaroos, he is currently working on the next novel in the Wright & Tran series of detective stories.

Ian Andrew

Pen Factor Picks

Reviewer of the Month

I am from Sydney but have lived in the Illawarra for 31 years. I graduated with a diploma of art in 1979, from what was then The Alexander Mackie CAE in Sydney, where I met my partner Sharon, an artist and teacher. We have a twenty two year old son. I left home at 17 and spent my early years working in a variety of jobs. I was restless, eager for new experiences. I managed to get work at the Sydney Theatre Company and the Opera House building sets and making props, I had a stint working on film and TV sets before building several recording studios in Sydney. Eventually I discovered computers ostensibly to make art, but had so many requests to repair them, I started my own business, which I ran until retiring in 2013. I have loved literature all of my life. In a lot of ways, reading informed the progress of my life. It is difficult to describe precisely, that strange, in-between world you enter when you are immersed in a good book. Good literature can be a great teacher and make one a better person. Since I retired from gainful employment I have been trying my hand at putting an enthusiasm for literature into writing. I have much to learn, but I have also found a great deal of pleasure in writing. Writing reviews for The Pen Factor is an opportunity to hone one’s own skills with the bonus of receiving positive criticism for your own work. Writing is necessarily a lonely business, so it is a pleasure to pass on the knowledge I have learnt, as well as having an ongoing conversation about the craft of writing. I do my best to be positive and constructive in criticism. I believe it is important to exercise both, humility and generosity when writing a critique/review for beginning writers. The best advice I could give is to put yourself into the shoes of your characters, and be ever observant. Eavesdrop on conversations. Sometimes an overheard sentence can reveal the beginning of a terrific story. One can overhear the most mundane, silliest snippet of conversation, but it can be a trigger; store it in your memory for later. I was standing in a que yesterday and two women were eating apples. There was silence, while they ate and then one said to the other “do you eat the core,” Immediately and vividly, two comic scenes popped into my head.

Dreyfus

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