The Depot Girl
Moira Tomlinson stood at the entrance of the old bus depot and asked herself, for the third time, what exactly she thought she was doing.
Art world stories
Art world stories, from quick reads to long series. Most art world stories here sit in bdsm and fetish. Reads run 13 to 23 minutes. Writers to know: Winter Thread, The Autumn Epilogue and Route of Stone. Readers usually start with “The Depot Girl” and “The Pie Auction”. Ranked by how many readers finish them. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
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Art world stories, ranked by readers
01 02 The Pie Auction
The pie auction wrapped up at ten forty and by eleven Bev and I had the last of the money counted, boxed, and signed off on, three hundred…
03 The Aftermath of Form
Kathy was twenty-three, and she was learning that freedom mostly felt like a headache.
04 The Salt Blessing
Tom Newsome was twenty-eight and he'd been hauling pallets up to the pulping station long enough to know the drill.
05 Auctioneer's Last Bid
Tilly Cartwright stood at the counter of the Lough Island post office and checked her watch for the third time.
06 Fields of Yield
Kristina pulled her Honda onto the gravel lot at eleven sharp.
07 The Rules We Broke
The gallery smells like turpentine and white paint, and Tiff walks the long floor alone at seven, tapping her pen against a clipboard she…
08 The Merging Room
The merger party was killing me.
09 The Unguarded Canvas
Lucia had been dropping hints about the whole thing for a year, and Keith had missed every single one of them, which was honestly kind of…
10 The Gallery Gift
I still don't know why I said yes to meeting at her gallery instead of a restaurant as anyone else would.
11 The Last Pose
Max was fifty-four years old and he gave massages for a living.
12 The Model's Contract
I signed up for the life drawing class on a Tuesday, mostly because my sister wouldn't shut up about me having no hobbies.
13 The Doorframe Chalk-Up
Every Jenkins Chalk-Up starts the same way.
14 The Bridal Shop Cleaner
The thing about cleaning a bridal shop at night is that you start to form judgments about weddings you will never be invited to.
15 The Scent of Her Sweater
I told myself I was going for the art.
16 The Final Pose
Fenton came home from the gallery with his tie already stuffed in his pocket and his jaw set so tight that Hank knew, before a single word…
17 The Spinning Arrow
I'm forty-four years old and I still own a wooden spinning arrow from a drinking game.
18 The Wandering Hand
*This one started with an image of a woman watching her husband through glass, not sure what she wanted to find.
19 The Last Art of Wrangling Geoffrey
Gayle Duffy was thirty-six years old, and she had never in her adult life imagined she would be scrubbing dried acrylic out of a jar of…
20 The Last Kiln
The kiln had been cooling since the power died at sunset; I checked the pyrometer and it read one thousand two hundred and forty degrees…
By length
10 to 30 minutesBest art world stories of 2026Writers known for it
Winter Thread, The Autumn Epilogue, Route of Stone, Phantom of Lark
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Questions
What makes a story art world?
Art world stories, from quick reads to long series.
Can I read them for free?
Some stories are free to read in full, with no account. The rest open with a free preview; members read everything.
How long are art world stories?
Most art world stories take 13 to 23 minutes, and the average is 18. Sort by shortest to start small, or follow a series to get each part as it lands.