Sue Harper

THE DARK NEST

This website is intended to open up my short stories to as many readers as possible. The whole collection is called The Dark Nest, and the stories are about hidden or repressed phenomena. Many of them have elements of transformation in them: a student who changes into a bluebottle, a dog who learns to talk, a woman whose skin becomes transparent, a doll who comes alive. And others are preoccupied by surprise: finding a Martian in a wood, buying a collection of tin soldiers that reinterprets the past, finding prehistoric paintings that revolutionise our sense of who we are.

Many of the stories deal with a material world which rebels against common sense: hats, coats and frocks that turns against their owner, often with devastating results.

The stories can be characterised as Body Gothic. I have read some of the stories aloud on the website, and two of them ("The Connoisseur" and "The Shining Furrow") have films made by artist Alan Everatt. Each story has an accompanying image and a strap-line.

Some of the stories were published by Egaeus Press in 2020 as "The Dark Nest". This sold out quickly, but reviews of it are included on this website, as is a Biography.