Dear Readers,

Comicality affected many more lives with his creativity and joy of life than he ever knew.

He will be sorely missed. Comicality, 1975- 2024 Requiescat in pace,

Hello Readers,

It's TSL again with hat in hand, yes it is that time of year again when we ask you our loyal readers to help keep our sites up and running. You may well know our sites are run almost entirely on your generous donations! When your donations do not cover all of the cost, the difference comes out of our pockets. We have no ADs on our sites and no Premium Tiers! There is no charge to our authors for hosting their stories nor any charge for you the readers to read them. We would appreciate it if you could find a way to donate any amount to keep our sites AD-free and running. So please check between your couch cushions and under your car seats any amount will be gratefully accepted. No amount is too small. We thank you very much for all of your help over the years. 

To sweeten the pot a bit, we are running the following promotion again, simply put, make a $10 USD donation get a free Joel Book.

Have you considered helping to keep these sites up and running? Are you also a fan of Ted Louis' "Joel" series? Well, Ted has informed us that he found a case of assorted Joel books. Yeah, "actual" in print books! He decided that anyone willing to make a $10 or larger donation within the US to the hosting service paying the bills for the Fort Family Community of sites, he is willing to send you your very own copy of a random book in the series, autographed by Ted Louis himself as a thank you!

What to do:

1. Click on https://dsshosting.net/donations/donation-form/ and click on "Donate Now".

2. Make a qualifying donation of $10 or more.

3,. Email your name and mailing address to joel-offer@fortfamilyforums.com

4. Once the donation has been confirmed, Ted Louis will send a random autographed copy of one of his books to you directly.

(One book per donation. This offer will be withdrawn once the limited number of books has been sent. The early bird gets the worm! Unfortunately, only US residents due to expensive international shipping :( We'll take down the offer as soon as we confirm that no copies remain.)

Dear Readers,

Unfortunately,  a Thanksgiving Short Story Submission by Paladin was lost in Cyberspace. It was submitted in time and processed properly, however, when the story was returned to the author it never arrived! The author contacted the indomitable TSL, who was able to get me in contact with the author.

Paladin's story is now live and available for your reading pleasure.

Keep Christmas in your hearts every day,

Fred

Dear Readers and Authors,

The following authors submitted their Short Stories for this Thanksgiving Event.

ACFan submitted his migraine-inducing story called TaDaoaSMiSwtbInkIhtIfotPD-AC. The name alone gave Santa a headache. Why the extremely long title, twice as long as TSL's longest title? ACFan decided to write a Short Story that tackled all of the event's themes, and somehow he succeeded. It is worth a read.

TSL submitted another one of his alcohol-infused submissions that again featured Wild Turkey prominently. Yes, both versions of Wild Turkey. TSL swears that no Wild Turkeys were harmed during the creation of his Short Story. Oh, you want to know the title hang on a sec while I consult the Library of Congress. Oh yeah, here it is Thanksgiving At Denny's® Again! ~ TSL

I apologize for forgetting to post this on time, however, the EggNog has been flowing freely here at the North Pole.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers and Authors,

Due to popular demand, the Thanksgiving Short Story Deadline has been moved to Midnight Wednesday, November 22, 2023. [Actually, TSL needed more time, so his problem is now your help.]

Happy Authoring,

Fred

Attention All Readers:

The long, long-awaited Fall Short Story Event has arrived and it is a humdinger of an event. There are more choices of what to write than you can shake a stick at. This event starts today and ends at Midnight PST on Saturday, November 18th, 2023.

This event's themes are as follows: Thanksgiving At Denny's® Again!, Thanksgiving With The Brother I Never Knew I Had, Thanksgiving on the Planet Denny's®, and last but not least Thanksgiving On A Spaceship Marooned In Space.

For the completely fearless authors out there ACFan has issued a challenge to all entrants and the challenge is this, join him in writing a Short Story to this Theme: Thanksgiving at Denny's® again on a Spaceship Marooned In Space With the Brother I never knew I had, that I found on the Planet Denny's®.

The Guidelines are straightforward as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words, give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Saturday, November 18th at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author who wants to enter; non-fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2023 Thanksgiving Short Story Event.

As always, this event is open to all readers and authors. 

Happy Writing,

Hi Everyone!

Yup, you read that title right, we are attaching a brand new/old site to our Community Network and I personally think it's a bit of a big deal. As many of you may be aware, the online author 'Ted Louis' from tedlouis.com is hanging up his quill. He has given us decades of some of the most amazing stories ever read by so many of us. In retiring, his plan was to give warning so people could grab copies and then let the website simply retire itself. Now, not wanting to see that happen, we put a ton of work into creating a family site that was capable of maintaining a home for his works and those of his hosted authors and I'm happy to say, it's ready for the big unveiling.

Now for the catch, I need to adjust friendship links between any other sites already co-hosting Ted's work as it is coming from the temporary domain; and where we have already obtained the correct domain name, it needs to be adjusted and then wait until DNS servers recognize that change. It could happen instantly or it could take a couple of days. There's no way of telling. So, if you are here to read a story by Ted Louis or the story from an author that is hosted on his original site, you may want to go to tedlouis.com as there will always be a version of all this work on the source site or outgoing classic site while co-hossted copies may fail until the internet catches up with the change.

I'd say please welcome Ted to the family but, hosted by us or not, he's always been family to us and it is our honor to be able to make his retirement that much more pleasant.

*HUGZ* - Jeff

Dear Authors and Readers,

It is that time of year again. Yes, it is time for our Annual Pledge Drive to keep the lights on and our Fort Family of sites servers running.

So please give us a helping hand to keep our sites alive. No donation is too big or too small, all donations are greatly accepted and appreciated.

Remember none of our sites have ads or Premium Fees!

Please help us keep our founder August Christopher's dream alive.

To Donate just click on the Donate Button in the left side panel on any site.

Thank you for your help over the years,

The Fort Family Admins

The Fort Family is truly saddened by the loss of the Author and Site Owner True Fan. He will be sorely missed.

We are extending our sincerest condolences to his family, co-authors, and readers.

His site will be maintained as a memorial to him.

Requiescat in Pace, 

The Fort Family Admins

Hi everyone,

As some of you may have noticed, we have been experiencing intermittent outages with a small handful of our story siites as recently as earlier today. These outages are a result of a service that we utilize being hacked, which is affecting some functionality of the sites and triggering malware scanners within our service. It is being addressed but as with any attack of this nature, we can't offer a timeframe of when we are "in the clear" as we are simply reacting when trouble pops up as software needs to be developed to address this new issue moving forward.

For now, be sure you keep copies of everything that is newly posted on your site as an attack could force a site to restore from a recent backup, which 'could' reverse the addition of new material. Site owners, you will be contacted if this action is performed on your site. Get in touch with one of us if you have any questions or concerns.

Together we built The Fort Family and together we defend it!
- Jeff

Hi Fort Family!

As many of you may be unaware, on Thursday evening our service provider was one of many who experienced a complete outage that took our entire community down for a short period of time. I won't go into any details but we are not complaining about the speed in which this issue was addressed. The reason for this post is to request that any major site updates or important chapter postings should be postponed to allow for temporary fixes to receive permanent repairs. Where the work continues, I would consider all of our sites "Read Only" for a day or two. I will attempt a current backup as a "Just Incase" but, if we experience DNS issues resulting from the outage, new work could be lost.

So please join us in thanking those involved in such a speedy recovery but to be safe, do some reading and let your readers angrily stare at your newest cliffhanger one or two more days. 🤣

*HUGZ*

A Belated Merry Christmas, and also Happy New Year!

All of the Christmas Short Story Event Submissions Are all live so get busy reading!

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of the authors that submitted their works!

These are the submitted works:

• "Christmas with Charlie ~ 2021" from Christmas with Charlie 2017-2021 by Zarek Dragon 
• "Chapter One " from Jonah and Timmy's Trip To The North Pole - JTF-C & TS by Jonah Timoty Campbell-Forte & Timmy Short 
• "Christmas at Denny's On [Name Your Planet] - JP" from Christmas at Denny's On [Name Your Planet] ~ JP by Jeff P. 
• "Christmas at Dennys 2021 - AC" from Christmas at Dennys 2021 - AC by ACFan 
• "Arthur Dent's Christmas" from Arthur Dent's Christmas by Jules Porter 

Have a Wonderful New Year,

We are thrilled to announce our Christmas Short Story Event for 2021, and the first Event of 2021.

This year's themes are: Christmas In Outer Space, Christmas On Mars etc., and because Uncle AC begged, Christmas at Dennys® On [Name Your Planet].

The Guidelines are straightforward as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words, give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 20th at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter; non-fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2021 Christmas Short Story Event.

And now something special for this year's event Flash Fiction! The Themes are: A Horse for Christmas, An Elf For Christmas etc.

The rules are the same except for the word count, which is a Maximum of 500 Words!

As always, this event is open to all readers and authors. 

Happy Writing,

We are very happy to announce that all of the stories submitted to this year's Christmas Short Story Event are ow live! So get busy reading.

It seems that The Story Lower with the help of Jeff P. has revived an old Fort Family Tradition with their version of Twas The Night Before Christmas, it is a bit different from the original, but still fun to read.

Happy reading,

Attention Everyone,

Due to my throwing my back out loading Santa's Sleigh, I have moved the Deadline to Wednesday, December 23rd at Midnight PST (Pacific Standard Time). That way my Elven Editing Team and I, will have time to finish their edits and for me to make sure that all the stories get posted on time. Christmas Morning that is.

Have fun writing,

Hello Authors, Writers, Readers, Those Thinking About Writing,

Due to your overwhelming requests, the Big Guy has decided to add another Theme to this Year's Christmas Short Story Event:

The New Theme is Christmas At Denny's® or A Denny's® Christmas, either one will work.

All the guidelines are still the same, so sharpen your pencils and fill your ink bottles, times awasting.

Don't forget, you don't need to be a hosted author to submit a story, so if you have been thing about writing a story, come and join the fun.

We have been quarantined here at the North Pole  since we are also Social Distancing getting access to our Internet Computer has been daunting, however, I finally succeeded so without further ado here are this year's themes:

What I Want for Christmas, A Dragon Earl Christmas*, A Clan Short Christmas*, Is Santa Claus Real?

The Guidelines are very simple as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 20th at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2020 Christmas Short Story Event.

As always this event is open to all readers and authors. 

Happy Writing,

* The Stories A Dragon Earl Christmas & A Clan Short Christmas, would include characters from their individual copyrighted stories and/or universes. Stories written for this event will be considered Non-Canon FanFic, unless the Universe Creators decide otherwise. (Yes, they just may like your work enough to validate it in the actual story universe. It can and has happened before!) Be sure to contact any author before you write their characters into your story, to get their consent. Don't worry, they don't bite...we think.

IMPORTANT: Characters from the following stories are considered Off-Limits by the originating author: Ark, Lost Souls, Out Of The Past, and Joel from Sa'ren is Off-Limits (but you can contact the author about other characters).

Between 2am EST and 6am EST on May 26, the wizards who provide our hosting will be casting a new integrity spell on the rack-mounted totem that contains all of our characters. This is done to ensure not too many of them escape or cause too much havoc on our realm. It may be difficult to reach the sites with your computer as they perform this ritual but if you are able to peer into ethereal realms, you shouldn’t have a problem. If not, I'd suggest you use your own wizardry and save a few chapters locally to get you through.

This ritual should take about 30 minutes for most of our sites. Maybe about a DAY for The Story Lover's Home as Dragons are much more difficult to contain and really do like messing with the wizards. <snicker> 

We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, both in lost reading time and should you become overrun with the group who plans out this time of year to escape normally. Our hopes and gratitude go out to the wizards tasked with this responsibility!

Merry Christmas Everyone,

We have quite a few Very, and I do mean Very Interesting Stories; it seems a few of our authors decided to attempt to include all of our themes in their stories, it will be up to you the readers to decide if they pulled it off. 

So, without further ado here is the list of authors that graced us with their stories this year, and they are in reverse alphabetical order:  Zarek Dragon, True Fan, The Story Lover, Sean E., Jeff P. and Ilúvantír. Their stories run from short to long, and everything in between.

So enjoy reading them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Happy Kwanzaa, Holy Ramadan, Frohe Weihnachten! , Christmas Alegre! , Joyeux Noel!,God Jul! , Glaedelig Jul! , Nadolig Llawen, Gledelig Jul, Nollaig Shona Duit, Mele Kalikimaka.

Dear Readers and Authors,

Don't forget your submissions are due tonight. 

And don't worry if you don't receive an acknowledgement right away there is a bad cold bug sweeping through the North Pole, but have no fear we will get all of the submissions posted on Chrismas Day.  (Since we may be sleeping and not watching our inbox ((hint, hint) your late entries juts might get posted.) Unfortunately, due to our bad cold, we won't be able to edit any of the submissions.

The Themes for this year's Christmas Short Story Event are as follows:  All I Want For Christmas Is, What Christmas Means To Me, and My Favourite Denny's® Christmas.

The Guidelines are very simple as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 22nd at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2019 Christmas Short Story Event.
7. If you need suggestions just email ACFan

As always this event is open to all readers and authors. 

Happy Writing,

Dear Readers and Authors,

This is just a friendly reminder that the Christmas Short Stoy Event Submissions are due by Midnight December 22nd PST.  So get the keyboards working and write your Christmas Short Story Masterpiece. ACFan is trying to find time to write bout what he calls a Grand Slam Pizza?

In case you forgot this year's themes are: All I Want For Christmas, What Christmas Means to Me, and My Favourite Christmas at Denny's®.  And yes you can combine the themes into a single story, just make it longer than 500 words give or take a gazillion.

Have fun writing, and don't forget this event is open to everyone, so spread the word!

Here is the email address to submit your stories to elfmail@events.csuproductions.com with the subject, your story title with your initials appended.

Happy writing,

Dear Readers and Authors,

The Themes for this year's Christmas Short Story Event are as follows:  All I Want For Christmas Is, What Christmas Means To Me, and My Favourite Denny's® Christmas.

The Guidelines are very simple as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 22nd at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2019 Christmas Short Story Event.
7. If you need suggestions just email ACFan

As always this event is open to all readers and authors. 

Happy Writing,

Dear Readers and Authors,

Thanks to all of you that submitted your Short Stories including a  first time F.R.E.D. submitter Talo Segura.

We have submissions from Crazy Cajun, Talo Segura, ACFan, Art  West, Ilúvantír, Paul Shroder, JeffsFort, Zarek Dragon, True Fan, Jonah Timoty Campbell-Forte & Timmy Short, and  Neal Richards & 'Goos'. Those were the authors that stayed within the guidelines, well sorta.

With a little bit of electronic trickery, we also have 'Welsh' versions of ACFan and Ilúvantír's stories. We can't guarantee the accuracy of those versions.

It seems that Mr. TSL decided that it wasn't Thanksgiving without a, Denny's® Story so he submitted one. However, it isn't included in this year's Fall 2019 Short Story Universe as it doesn't fit the guidelines by a country mile.

Before I forget this is ACFan's first solo Event Submission and it is one that you won't easily forget.

Happy Reading and Happy Thanksgiving,

Dear Readers & Authors,

This is your courtesy reminder that your submissions for the Thanksgiving Short Story Event are due Monday Night at Midnight PST plus or minus 12,000 seconds.

The Turkeys are ready, are you?

Just in case you forgot what this is all about here's the info:

 A Brother For Thanksgiving.

The setup: On the day before Thanksgiving, while I was in the kitchen preparing my son Patrick's after-school snack, Patrick came home and another kid with him. Instead of saying his usual 'Hi Daddy, I'm home', his greeting nearly gave me a heart attack.

"Hi Daddy, this is my new Brother, Ben!"

1. The same guidelines apply the Short Story should be between 500 and 15,000 words, be as crazy with your ideas as you want. The main thing is to have fun writing the story. 
2. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
3. Submissions are due by Monday, November 25th, all submissions will be posted on Thanksgiving Day Thursday, November 28th.
   1. By Midnight PST ~ Both  of Goofy's hands are pointing straight up, for you 24-hour people 0:00 Give or take 5,000 seconds
4. All submissions should be sent to 2019 Fall Short Story Event.
5. The title of the story should be A Brother For Thanksgiving. with the Author's Initials appended to it.

Readers don't forget this is a very easy way to try your hand at writing a story, so take a chance you might like it.

All stories will be posted on Thanksgiving Day.

Happy Writing,

Dear Readers,

There are only sixteen days left to get your Fall Short Story Event submission written. All submissions are due by Midnight PST on November 25th. The theme is A Brother for Thanksgiving. So get busy writing.

Now for the 'More':

This year's Christmas Short Story Event has Three Themes, yes you read that right Three Themes! The themes are as follows: All I Want For Christmas Is, What Christmas Means to Me, and My Favourite Denny's® Christmas. 

The Guidelines are very simple as usual:

1. Stories should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take a million words.
2. All Submissions should have the author's initials appended to the end of the Filename.
3. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 22,d at Midnight PST.
4. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
5. Have Fun Writing!
6. All submissions should be sent to 2019 Christmas Short Story Event.
7. If you need suggestions just email ACFan

Happy Writing,

Dear Readers,

First the Oops, it seems that I inadvertently left off an important piece of information in the guidelines for this event, so here it is: All submissions should be titled A Brother For Thanksgiving XX with the Xs being the author's initials.  For example, my story would have the filename of A Brother For Thanksgiving FTE, for Fred the Elf. Yes, I know my initials have three letters, but I didn't want to use three Xs for obvious reasons.

Now on to the update,  so far we have three entries and they are all completely different, and I do mean completely different, in fact, one of the authors followed the instructions, 'be as crazy with your ideas as you want' to the extreme. It is a fanciful piece of twisted imagination, so fanciful in fact that I hope we don't get any more like it. ;)

Some of you may never eat Pizza again after reading this story.

Readers don't forget that this event is open to you as well if you have ever wanted to write a story this is your chance. In fact, several of our Fort Family Authors got their start as authors in one of these events. So give it a try, you just might be amazed by the results.

Happy writing,

Fred the Elf

Dear Readers,

I am proud to announce that we have a theme for the 2019 Fall Shor Story Event ~ A Brother For Thanksgiving.

The setup: On the day before Thanksgiving, while I was in the kitchen preparing my son Patrick's after-school snack, Patrick came home and another kid with him. Instead of saying his usual 'Hi Daddy, I'm home', his greeting nearly gave me a heart attack.

"Hi Daddy, this is my new Brother, Ben!"

1. The same guidelines apply the Short Story should be between 500 and 15,000 words, be as crazy with your ideas as you want. The main thing is to have fun writing the story. 
2. This event is open to any reader or author that wants to enter, Non-Fort Family Authors are more than welcome.
3. Submissions are due by Monday, November 25th, all submissions will be posted on Thanksgiving Day Thursday, November 28th.
   1. By Midnight PDT ~ Both  of Goofy's hands are pointing straight up, for you 24-hour people 0:00 Give or take 5,000 seconds
4. All submissions should be sent to 2019 Fall Short Story Event.
5. The title of the story should be A Brother For Thanksgiving. with the Author's Initials appended to it.

Happy writing,

Dear Readers,

Our Second Spring Short Story Event ~ Pride Day - Good, Bad, or Indifferent is Now Live! Unfortunately, we have only one entry for this event. 

The Story Lover, has brought us Pride Day ~ Good Bad or Indifferent?, an insightful look into the Pride Celebrations.

Don't forget to let him know that you have read his work.

Happy reading,

Dear Readers,

We have three fantastic stories from the Spring Short Story Event ~ A Story Mashup; available now for your reading pleasure.

We have The Lost Dragon Down Under Memories, by The Story Lover.

Next, we have A Penny On The Dragon, by Jeff P.

And finally, by Zarek A. Dragon, we have Another Voyager.

Dragon, Dragon, and Dragon; coincidence, maybe, or maybe not?

Happy reading,

Attention Readers and Authors,

The Official Deadline for the Spring Short Story Mashup Event is Midnight Pacific Daylight Time, (Both of Mickey's hand are pointing straight up) So don't forget to get your submissions in.

The Official Deadline for our Second Spring Short Story Event ~ Pride Day ~ Good Bad Or Indifferent is now Midnight PDT Memorial Day May 27, 2019. Yup, you have an extra three hours to pen your masterpiece(s)

Our Production Team is ready and waiting, so send those submissions in to elfmail@events.csuproductions.com Subject the appropriate Spring Short Story Event.

Happy writing,

Pride Day - Good, Bad, or Indifferent:

Do you celebrate it? Should it be Celebrated? Why or Why Not? How Do you Celebrate it? We are looking for insightful words about something that has a lot of people talking about it.

All entries should be in by Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 2019, at 9:00 PM PDT (give or take a day or three.)

Entries should be between 500 to 15,000 words give or take.

Send your submission to Spring Short Story Pride Event.

Stories will be posted on June 1, 2019, the start of Pride Month.

Happy Writing,

What is it? Well, you take two different stories by two different authors (The Fine Print - They can be the same author if you want.), put them together and run with it. As always, you must have permission from the authors involved to use their story and characters. For Example - Sentenced to Haven, Dragons Across Space, The Operant Unconscious Memories, Another Priorities, or you can create your own title. However, you do need to give attribution to the authors whose stories you are combining. Have fun go wild and crazy. Did I say have fun yet? Yeah, do that!

I will post stories Monday, May 27, 2019, on Memorial Day.

1. All entries should be in by Friday, May 24, 2019, at 9:00 PM PDT (give or take a day or three.)
2. Entries should be between 500 to 15,000 words give or take.
3. Send all submissions to Spring Short Story Event.

Happy Writing,

Hi Family!

As one of our favorite holidays is right on top of us, I'm afraid our plans for it have been unavoidably put off. We got an announcement from our hosting service that there will be some much-needed maintenance being performed on the machines that we rely on for hosting. Which means we can expect intermittent outages throughout the day. Now at first, we thought "Hmmm... Maybe THIS was intended as an April Fool's joke..." before we considered how serious our hosting service takes their job. So, even though all year long we have been planning something a bit out there to make up for missing past April Fool's opportunities, we regretfully need to let it go this year. For those of us who think THIS is an April Fool's joke, we have trained you well but, this year that training will not serve you as well as it should. <giggle>

I also want to remind you all that tomorrow, our hosted author "Garrett D.M." ships out to boot camp with the United States Army. I hope you all were able to send him off with good wishes and I personally can't wait to hear some of the stories he comes home with. Those of you who would like to send him a quick message to wish him luck, you can reach him at his listed email: garret.d.m98@gmail.com. I'm sure he would appreciate knowing that we are all with him in spirit.

Til the next update,
*HUGZ*
- Jeff P. -

Dear Readers,

This year's Valentine's Day Short Story Event is titled ~ Cupid's Arrows ~ 2019 ~ Cupid Won't Give Up! All the very interesting stories are now live!

Get busy reading, who knows you just might fall in love. 

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers and Authors,

This year's Valentine's Day Short Story Event is titled ~ Cupid's Arrows ~ 2019 ~ Cupid Won't Give Up! 

The event starts now and runs through January 31, 2018, for unedited stories and February 7th for edited stories. I will post all stories on Valentine's Day February 14th.

Please send all your submissions (yes multiple submissions are allowed) to  Elfmail <elfmail@events.csuproductions.com> with the subject of Cupid's Arrows ~ 2019.

If you need an idea of what this event is about check out this really cute Short Video In AHeartbeat it just may spark your muse.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers and Authors,

This year's Valentine's Day Short Story Event is titled ~ Cupid's Arrows ~ 2019 ~ Cupid Won't Give Up! 

The event starts now and runs through January 31, 2018, for unedited stories and February 7th for edited stories. I will post all stories on Valentine's Day February 14th.
The Rules:

1. The short stories must be between 500 words and 15,000 words
   
   
2. The Short Story should be about how Cupid Won't Give Up, as he keeps shooting arrows at someone in the closet.
   
   
3. Many of us have been in this position. Suddenly, your heart reaches out for the one person who you simply can’t risk telling how you feel. When your heart betrays you, can you build up the courage to follow it or do you continue to fight?
   
   
4. This event is open to all readers and authors.
   
   
5. Authors must authorize the Fort Family of Sites, by written permission to host their stories.

So put on your writing caps and get writing, more details to follow.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

All Nineteen Twenty of this year's Christmas Short Story Event Submissions are now live here on The Fort Readers Event District!

Santa & I owe our author NCNesturfer our most abject and humblest of apologies, I made his story invisible while I checked on some special formatting and in my rush to get all of the chapters posted, I forgot to switch the status to Publish, before I clicked the Save Button.

So please enjoy this latest addition to our Christmas Short Story Event.  This has bee=n our most successful event yet, thank you, authors!

All of these stories will be appearing on their author's Home Site as soon as we get a slight crosslinking issue resolved.

Enjoy all of these amazing stories that the authors have worked hard creating for you, please take a few moments to say thank you by sending them an email.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

All Nineteen of this year's Christmas Short Story Event Submissions are now live here on The Fort Readers Event District!

All of these stories will be appearing on their author's Home Site as soon as we get a slight crosslinking issue resolved.

Enjoy all of these amazing stories that the authors have worked hard creating for you, please take a few moments to say thank you by sending them an email.

Happy Reading,

P.S. Thanks to TSL for twisting so many authors arms to get their Short Stories.

Dear Readers,

Next Saturday is the 'official' submission deadline, all of your wonderful Christmas Short Stories 'should' be submitted by Midnight that night.

*** News Flash ***

My nice assistant 'Goos' says that he will fly any late entries directly to my inbox here at the North Pole so if you are close to finishing or even just getting started he will make sure that I get your submission in time to post.

*** End News Flash***

The theme for this years Christmas Short Event is A True Spirit of Christmas, What The Christmas Experience Truly Should Be.  The guidelines are simple all Short Stories should fit the theme or at least be in the neighbourhood. All stories must meet the standard Submissions Guidelines located HERE. The word count should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take three or four (um...thousand? < giggle >). If in doubt Fred takes 'Cinmon Crumbles' as bribes.  Don't forget to give the Fort Family of Sites permission to host your Short Story, also make sure that your Author name & Copyright Date is in your Short Story as well.

All submissions should be submitted by Midnite PST, December 22, 2018, All submissions will be posted on Christmas Eve, December 24^th, 2018. Send your submissions to Christmas Short Story Event Submissions. Give or take an hour or so.

Happy Writing,

P.S. Thanks to TSL for twisting so many authors arms to get their Short Stories.

Dear Readers,

The theme for this years Christmas Short Event is A True Spirit of Christmas, What The Christmas Experience Truly Should Be.  The guidelines are simple all Short Stories should fit the theme or at least be in the neighbourhood. All stories must meet the standard Submissions Guidelines located HERE. The word count should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take three or four (um...thousand? < giggle >). If in doubt Fred takes 'Cinmon Crumbles' as bribes.  Don't forget to give the Fort Family of Sites permission to host your Short Story, also make sure that your Author name & Copyright Date is in your Short Story as well.

All submissions should be submitted by Midnite PST, December 22, 2018, All submissions will be posted on Christmas Eve, December 24^th, 2018. Send your submissions to Christmas Short Story Event Submissions.

Happy Writing,,

Dear Readers,

All of the Fall Short Story Event ~ A Thanksgiving Surprise Stories ~ Are now live and available for your reading pleasure.

For those of you that don't celebrate Thanksgiving, you still will find some great reading. To our Canadian readers sorry we are a month and change late for you.

Please let all of our authors know that you have read their stories. This is NCNetsurfer's second Short Story Event and Juju's First, thanks for being part of the event!

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

Saturday, November 17,  Midnight PST, has come and passed and all eight submissions have been added to the processing queue and will be posted on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2018

If you haven't quite finished writing your story, however, you are close please submit it as soon as possible, please include a bribe of 'Cinmon Crumbles'.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

There is only one week left to get your submission for the Fall Short Story Event Submission submitted. Next Saturday at Midnight PST.

The theme for this years Christmas Short Event is A True Spirit of Christmas, What The Christmas Experience Truly Should Be.  The guidelines are simple all Short Stories should fit the theme or at least be in the neighbourhood. All stories must meet the standard Submissions Guidelines located HERE. The word count should be between 500 and 15,000 words give or take three or four (um...thousand? < giggle >). If in doubt Fred takes 'Cinmon Crumbles' as bribes.  Don't forget to give the Fort Family of Sites permission to host your Short Story, also make sure that your Author name & Copyright Date is in your Short Story as well.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

Just in time for Halloween all the Death's Day Off Short Story Event submissions have now been posted.

Don't forget to say thank you to our awesome authors by dropping them a short email.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

We now have seven confirmed submissions for this years Fall Short Story Event, A Thanksgiving Surprise, keep those submissions rolling in. Send your Submissions to A Thanksgiving Surprise.

Thanks to all of you that have sent in your submissions, especially the new authors.

We have also resumed posting the submissions for the Death's Day Off Short Story Event from years past.

Don't forget all of our Short Story Events are open to readers as well as authors to contribute.

We will be announcing the Christmas Event shortly.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

All of the previous Fall Short Story Event Stories that we were able to recover have now been posted.

So get busy reading, and maybe while reading get some ideas for this years Fall Short Story Event ~ A Thanksgiving Surprise.

Don't forget all of our Short Story Events are open to readers as well as authors to contribute.

We already have two awesome entries!

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers,

Thanks to the Author Matthew Templar we now have his Christmas Story back where it belongs on a Fort Family Event Site.  A Simple Christmas Story is now live and complete.

Happy Reading,

Dear Readers & Authors,

We have received our first entry and it was perfect, it hit the nail right on the head for the theme. So the rest of you get out your keyboards, pen, and or pencils and get writing.

The 2018 Fort Family of Sites Fall Short Story Event's theme is: A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise! ~ You and your family (who do not know you're gay) decide this year to go out for their Thanksgiving Feast. Mid-way through the meal, someone stops by your table. You are horrified to find out it was a guy you just started dating, who doesn't know you're not out to your family...

As usual, this event is open to all readers and authors of the Fort Family Sites, however, if anyone knows of an author from another site that would like to enter this even just ask them to click on the following link Story Submissions. My staff and I would love to see lots of new authors entering this year.

The rules/guidelines are as follows: Must be theme related should be a minimum of 500 words and no longer than 15,000 words. These are not carved in stone, so please submit away. Submissions are due no later than Midnight PDT on November 17, 2018. All submissions will be posted on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2018. Please include the theme title: A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise! in the title of your story. In case you forgot the email address for submissions is A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise!

Some pretty amazing stories have come out of the Short Story Events and some wonderful New Authors as well. My Staff and I will be busy posting the previous Fall Short Story Events over the next few weeks. 2007 has been completed and 2008 will be posted shortly.

Happy writing,

Fred The Elf

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to send out a quick notice to let you all know that as a part of our attempt to keep our hosted sites on fast, reliable, and up to date servers, we will be migrating our sites to brand new equipment with up to date software, including an upgraded operating system. We anticipate no operational downtime for our visitors but where we are physically moving, there may be a very short time where DNS servers may be pointing to the old server even after the new servers are brought online. 

If you were planning to do a marathon reading session, go right ahead as the only change that may be noticeable would be sites responding slightly faster than usual. By Thursday if you hear nothing from us then it will be back to business as usual for us behind the scenes and you will see progress return to normal. 

We will advise if this schedule changes as the request to greenlight the move is being placed tonight.

Here's to as many reliable years on newer equipment.

-Jeff P-
On behalf of DSS Hosting, CSU Productions

Dear Readers & Authors,

All of the Fall 2007 Short Story Event Submissions are now live for your reading enjoyment.

Authors, if you don't see one of your stories that were previously posted please contact us at Missing Stories.

Happy writing and reading,

Fred The Elf

Dear Readers & Authors,

We have begun posting the stories of the past Fall Short Story Events, beginning with those from 2007.

So check back daily for new stories from those years past.

Authors, if you don't see one of your stories that was previously posted please contact us at Missing Stories.

Happy writing and reading,

Fred The Elf

Dear Readers & Authors,

The 2018 Fort Family of Sites Fall Short Story Event's theme is: A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise! ~ You and your family (who do not know you're gay) decide this year to go out for their Thanksgiving Feast. Mid-way through the meal, someone stops by your table. You are horrified to find out it was a guy you just started dating, who doesn't know you're not out to your family...

As usual, this event is open to all readers and authors of the Fort Family Sites, however, if anyone knows of an author from another site that would like to enter this even just ask them to click on the following link Story Submissions. My staff and I would love to see lots of new authors entering this year.

The rules/guidelines are as follows: Must be theme related should be a minimum of 500 words and no longer than 15,000 words. These are not carved in stone, so please submit away. Submissions are due no later than Midnight PDT on November 17, 2018. All submissions will be posted on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2018. Please include the theme title: A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise! in the title of your story. In case you forgot the email address for submissions is A Thanksgiving Dinner Surprise!

Some pretty amazing stories have come out of the Short Story Events and some wonderful New Authors as well. My Staff and I will be busy posting the previous Fall Short Story Events over the next few weeks.

Happy writing,

Fred The Elf

Dear Readers,

The Midsomer Shory Event with the theme of A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object has arrived and the submissions are now live. The Authors and their stories will be listed in alphabetical order, that is except for the very first story, and you will see why that is.

We have a New Author today with his first entry, so please welcome NCNetsurfer and his story about a well-polished object,  A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object: A Pet Rock.

Art West has brought us two stories, one with a British feel and one with a twist in the name,  first, we have A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object: Being Close, and second A Day In The Life Of Matt.

Beldro Mercier brings us a bit of fantasy with, A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object: Through the Looking Glass.

DouglasDD has decided to tickle your fancy with his story, A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object: Keying In.

The Story Lover also has brought us two entries, his first is a whimsical look into the wild and woolly world of punctuation surprisingly enough titled, A Day In The Life Of Ugo The Umlaut, followed by a foray into the bountiful word of a nature travelogue with, A Day In The Life Of 'Cap'.

Don't forget to thank the authors for the hard work by dropping them a short email, and please extend a warm welcome to our Newest Author NCNetsurfer.

Happy reading,

Fred The Elf

Dear Authors & Readers,

There is a little over two weeks left for you to get your entries written and submitted. The last day for submissions to be received is Saturday, August 25, 2018, not the 23rd! Posting will begin on Friday, August 31st giving you a four-day reading weekend. At least for the yanks.

Submissions are due by Midnight on the 25th PDT or UTC -7.

Submissions should be between 500 and 15,000 words more or less and the theme is  A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object, we have quite a few submissions already and there is always room for more. This event is open to all Fort Family Site Authors and Readers, you don't have to be an established author to submit an entry. There are quite a few Fort Family Authors that got their start with a Short Story Event. If you need your submission edited just let us know and we will see that your submission gets edited. First-time submitters, please give the Fort Family Sites permission to host your story. As always all submissions remain the property of the submitting author. Always include the appropriate Copyright © Info with all Submissions.

Happy writing,

Fred The Elf

Folks,

The Maximum number of words is 15,000, not 1,500 as earlier stated, and you don't lose points if you go over that.

Happy writing,

Fred The Elf

Dear Readers,

Our latest Short Story Event is called A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object.

The rules are the usual Minimum 500 Words, Maximum 1,500 Words. 

End Submission Date August 23, 2018.

Posting Date August 29, 2018, for the Labour Day Weekend for the Yanks.

All submissions should be sent to elfmail at events.csuproductions.com with A Day In The Life Of An Inanimate Object as the subject. Substitute the @ sign for at and remove the spaces.

Happy writing,

Dear Readers,

Happy Fourth of July to the Yanks.

In the Summer Short Story Parody Event, we have Major Family Parody by The Story Lover, and Sir Garret and Lincoln by True Fan.

For the Summer Short Story Fill In The Blank Event, we have TSL's Fill In The Blank by The Story Lover,  Brynmor - Fill In The Blanks by Brynmor, and Fill In The Blanks Family Secret by Art West.

Don't Forget to let the authors know what you think of their hard work.

Happy reading,

Don't forget that the deadline for submitting your short stories for the Summer Short Story Event is tonight at MIDNITE Pacific Daylight Time for you East Coaster that would be Three AM EDT.

So get your stories written and your requests for Fill In The Blanks in NOW.

All submissions and requests should be mailed to Summer Short Story Parody Event, or Summer Short Story Fill In The Blank Event

All Stories will be posted on July 4, 2018, not July 1 as previously stated!

Happy writing,

Fred

P.S. As usual the deadline isn't carved in stone, however, stories will be posted on the morning of July 4th, 2018

Folks,

The deadline for the Summer Short Story Event is getting closer June 30th is only fourteen days away. 

So get your stories written and your requests for Fill In The Blanks in soon.

All submissions and requests should be mailed to Summer Short Story Parody Event, or Summer Short Story Fill In The Blank Event

All Stories will be posted on July 4, 2018, not July 1 as previously stated!

Happy writing,

Fred

Folks,

We have one confirmed entry and one possible entry forThe Parody Event.

We also have three requests for The Fill In The Blanks Event.

Keep the request and entries coming!

Happy writing,

Fred

Folks we are excited to announce our latest Short Story Events! Yes, you read that right I said Events, plural.

The First Event is the Parody Event, you can parody any published story on any of the Fort Family Sites. The standard rules apply, with one additional MANDATORY Rule, you must have written permission from the author whose story you want to parody and that permission must be submitted along with your Short Story. No Permission, No Story!

The Second Event is the Fill In The Blanks Event. You will get the opening paragraph and a middle paragraph and you fill in the rest. The opening paragraph will revolve around the first day as a Senior in High School or a Freshman in College. The middle Paragraph revolves around a party that the main character went to and the morning after when he/she wakes up in their bed in someone else's clothes. The rest of the story is up to you, I will supply the paragraphs to any author that wants to enter this event.

Both Events will end at Midnight PDT on June 30, 2018. All entries will be posted on July 1, 2018, here on F.R.E.D.
The short stories must be between 500 words and 15,000 words,
This event is open to all readers and authors.
Authors must authorize the Fort Family of Sites, by written permission to host their stories.

All submissions and requests should be mailed to Summer Short Story Parody Event, or Summer Short Story Fill In The Blank Event

Happy writing,

Fred

The Fort Family of Sites is proud to announce your One Stop Shop for all of your Fort Family Site News; the new Fort Family Community Site. All News Posts and Latest Chapters from all of the Fort Family Sites will now appear on our new Fort Family Comunity Site. Hop on over and check it out.

Dear Readers,

 We have an incredulous collection of Cupid missing with his arrows they range from the Romantic to the I Can't believe you wrote that. They are all a lot of fun to read. They have arrived in alphabetical order:

• It Came From Denny's: From Coffee With Love by Akeentia ~ Yes folks he is back writing!
• Stupid Cupid 's Bent Arrows by Art West
• Was It Cupid or Was It Morphine? by Boudreaux
• Cupid Lets One Rip by Brynmor
• Cupid Steps In by Jeff's Fort aka Jeff P.
• Don't Screw With My Family by Maxieplus
• Cupid's Arrows ~ 2018 by Silver Wolf
• The Twisted Princess or is it Prince? by The Story Lover
• Cupid Missed by True Fan
• Cupid's Arrows ~ 2018 by Zarek Dragon

Thanks to all of the wonderful authors for their entries, please don't forget to write to the authors and let them know that you read their stories.

Fred The Elf

Although the 'Carved in Stone Official Deadline' has passed Fred the Elf is still accepting entries of the Cupid's Arrows ~ 2018 Short Story Event. He has graciously extended the deadline until 11:59 PM PST February 12, 2018. Please submit all entries to Fred The Elf.

Readers and Authors don't forget to submit your entries for the Cupid's Arrows Short Story Event. Unedited versions are due by January 31st and edited versions by February 7th. We really want to see lots of entries by our readers, an entry will automatically get you added to the Good List.

Fred

Folks another author has submitted their short story for this event. Please submit all stories to the following address ~ elfmail at events.csuproductions.com Substitute the 'at' with the @ symbol and delete the spaces.

Let's see if we can snow cupid under with stories,

Fred

This year's Valentines Day Themed Event is titled Cupid's Arrows. The event starts now and runs through January 31, 2018, for unedited stories and February 7th for edited stories. All stories will be posted on Valentine's Day February 14th.
The Rules:

1. The short stories must be between 500 words and 15,000 words
   
   
2. The Short Story should concern Cupid's Arrows missing and hitting the wrong person.
   
   
3. Someone setting the cap for someone and ending up with someone completely opposite or different. 
   
   
4. This event is open to all readers and authors.
5. Authors must authorize the Fort Family of Sites, by written permission to host their stories.

I hope that we have as many entries for Cupid's Arrows as we did for the Christmas Extravaganza. All stories will be available here.

Fred
P.S. We already have our first entrant! 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Happy Kwanzaa, Holy Ramadan, Frohe Weihnachten! , Christmas Alegre! , Joyeux Noel!,God Jul! , Glaedelig Jul! , Nadolig Llawen, Gledelig Jul, Nollaig Shona Duit, Mele Kalikimaka

Thanks to Santa Akeentia and his helpful Elves Jeff's Fort, ACFan and The Story Lover there are lots of presents under the tree for you to read.

From all of u to all of you may you have a  Safe, Happy & Healthy  Holidays,

Fred

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Yup, it's Christmas Eve and I have one more present for everyone! (Yeah, a brand new Events site just wasn't enough!)

While all the chaos was going on with getting this new site ready for the Christmas Extravaganza that TSL has been killing himself to get ready this year, Sean Short and Danny Page from Clan Short collaborated and wrote the next chapter of "The Most Amazing Story Ever Written: Part Two" and you will probably notice that their senses of humor rival those of their originating authors. (Who woulda guessed they had it in them?)

Enjoy, and look for the present I left you under your tree... Hehehe, Made Ya Look!

Bartholomew is busy flying stories in from the other sites and dropping them off. My helpers and I have begun posting the first of this year's Christmas Stories as well as those of Christmases Past. So, please keep checking back as we continue populating this awesome new site.

Hello dear reader, welcome to F.R.E.D. - the Fort Readers Event District. NOW LIVE!

This site gives you access to not only our past event submissions from readers and Fort Family Authors, but also access to current event postings and details for submissions to upcoming events.

Enjoy your stay; there are cookies and soda in the Lounge, and the various characters running around will be glad to assist if you get lost!

AC