resources - ralan.com

Many of you probably already know about this, but Ralan.com is a great place
to find markets for your short stories and novellas.  Websites are listed by
payment category: pro, semi-pro, pay, and token, as well as paying or non-paying
anthologies.  With each site is listed submission and payment details.  Even five
minutes on the site offers that little push to finish short story X or Z or start one
you've had on your list of things to write someday.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph;
a novel is a film.  - Lorrie Moore

By Maureen M. Evans

resources - free short stories

Mallow yearned to know everything.  Curiosity was part of her, like her short
blond hair and bitten fingernails.  The best thing in the world was not her
luckfigs or her whiskey lake, not her weeping-orchid garden or the cast-iron
ducks that thudded heavily on her windowsills every morning, hoping for a
bit of onion oil to moisten their bills, not even her friends or her little country
house, but having curiosity satisfied, feeling the warm, sure spread of
knowledge through her body.

- Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While (Tor.com)

Many authors post their short stories on their websites, or at least the links.
Two such authors are Catherynne M. Valente and Kij Johnson.
Click to see the lists of available reads.

By Ana Juan

resources - idioms

UsingEnglish.com has a catalog of idioms based on countries (English): Irish,
American, Australian, British, Canadian, Scottish, Indian, and New Zealander.
This can be helpful if, say, you're writing a Scottish character and want to indicate
his or her country of origin with more than "aye" and "ye".

Cat's lick = quick wash
Head is mince = confusion in face of a dilemma
Turn the crack = change the subject

By Absurdite

resources - visuwords

Visuwords is a free version of a service similar to what Visual Thesaurus does. 
If a regular thesaurus just isn't doing it for you today, or if you're more of a
visual thinker (utilizing pencils and notebooks, etc), then check out Visuwords. 
It organizes the connected words as a train of thought.  Throw as in confuse or
throw as in toss - it puts those word sets into two different bubbles.

It's a nice change and new context if you're really stumped in describing the
current literary action.

resources - atlas obscura

Need an interesting setting to inspire a story?  Visit Atlas Obscura.
On the home page now - A cave looking covered in hair, the narrowest street in Canada,
and an underground lake.

Via creativepro.com

the well written - resources - mythopoeic awards

The nominees of the Mythopoeic Awards.
Need some inspiration, read some of the nominated works.
I'm reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Shop of Her Own Making, which is as entertaining for adults as it is for children.  Valente has such a way with words.
Next up, The Night Circus.

By Dilka Bear

resources - tor.com

Tor.com is a great place to read some short fiction.  Here is an excellent
story by Kij Johnson called Ponies.  It's been nominated for best short
story in the World Fantasy Awards.  I recommend a look.

By Corinne Reid

resources - folktale archive

Here is an archive of folktales.  They're organized by type:  beauties
and beasts, enchanted frogs, hairless men, bride tests, cinderellas, and
more.  It's a great resource if you're writing one of these types of stories
and need some inspiration, or need to know what's out there.

By Scott Gustafson

resources - short story collection

Here is a place to find short stories from authors like L. Frank Baum
to Leo Tolstoy to Edith Wharton.

By Stephanie Fizer Coleman

resources - h.p. lovecraft short stories collection

Here you can find a collection of Lovecraft stories... in case you're the
darker kind of storyteller.  Enjoy.

By Mark Draws

resources - andrew lang fairy stories collection

Andrew Lang collected fairy stories from around the world and compiled
them into a series of "Fairy Books", labeled by different colors. You can
find them all online for some great fifteen-minute reads here.

By Nicoletta Ceccoli