This collection of micro fiction is divided into nine sections: salt, sea, skin, sky, snow, soil, stars, steel, stone. Each section has five untitled stories ranging in length from a 13-word haiku to a maximum length of 150 words, including the nominated Best Micro Fiction Story – Silenced (Emerge Literary Journal).
The natural elements are explored through our connection to them and our disconnect from them, and from each other. The stories traverse borders and lands, dive to the depths of the sea, reach to the stars and the moon, some rooted in reality, others surreal.
‘Sometimes we are lovers, sometimes we are broken, sometimes we are accepting, sometimes we surprise, sometimes we are vengeful – and Laura sets out all of it on the page like a master with a succinctness I greatly admire.’ – Nikki Dudley
‘(Un)Natural Elements is an exquisite Jewel of a book.’ – Laura Stamps
‘Besley offers us nature as mother and a mother’s nature, all with the nuance and reflection of her previous collections.’ – Amy Barnes
Circa l’autore
Laura Besley is the author of (Un)Natural Elements, 100ne Hundred and The Almost Mothers. She has been widely published in online journals, print journals and anthologies, including Best Small Fictions (2021). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Micro Fiction and she has been listed by TSS Publishing as one of the top 50 British and Irish Flash Fiction writers. Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets @laurabesley