JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

One of our regular features is the LitWit Challenge, in which we furnish a situation, premise or photograph, and the participants develop it into a story of 1,000 words or more. This contest has generated a lot of good stuff over the years—bizarre, hilarious, absurd, inventive, moving, filthy, and always extremely readable. This is our core audience: the nerds, the weirdos, the people who carry entire galaxies in their heads.

What follows is a selection of stories written by our readers. It’s interesting to view them as standalone pieces outside of the contests. There are dozens more that we could feature, but these are the first ones that popped up in our not-very-thorough search through the archive. We really should put a book out. Remind us of your favorite stories in Comments.

Thanks to National Bookstore, which has supported the LitWit Challenge since its inception.

We can’t think of proper illustrations for the stories, so if anyone has suggestions or feels like doing visuals, email them to saffron.safin@gmail.com.