Sandition: Short Story

by Helen Marshall

Caught in a love affair with a famous author, a young woman discovers a lost manuscript of Jane Austen written on the inside of her body. From Aurora Award-winner Helen Marshall’ s Hair Side, Flesh Side, this short story is one of a set of fifteen quirky and cutting parables about history, memory, and the cost of creating art.

ChiZine Publications (CZP) curates the best of the bizarre, bringing you the most excitingly weird, subtle, dark, and disturbing literary fiction. Look for more titles in the ChiZine short stories collection to build your digital library.

50 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

About the author

Helen Marshall (manuscriptgal.com) is an award-winning author, editor, and bibliophile.

Her poetry and short fiction have been published in The Chiaroscuro, Paper Crow, Abyss & Apex, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Tor.com. In 2011, she released a collection of poems entitled Skeleton Leaves from Kelp Queen Press and her collection of short stories Hair Side, Flesh Side was released from ChiZine Publications in 2012. This collection won the 2013 British Fantasy Sydney J. Bounds Award and was short-listed for a 2013 Aurora Award for Best Related Work. It was named one of the top ten F/SF books of 2012 by January Magazine. Her second fiction collection Gifts for the One Who Comes After launched in September 2014.

Reviews

[Meran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though written well, the story seemed a bit of fluff; until, of course, the script appeared.

Even then, it was just interesting, even when I found out who the script belonged to. (That author has gotten "old" with me; all her works seem repetitious.)

But it was the young editors, and the wife's, responses to those new words that got to me.

Special, indeed!

[Susanne Braburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chills.... just chills. That's all I have to say. This is one of those stories I wish I could reread for the first time.