Nature, Human is a collection of speculative and magic realism stories by JE Solo. These fourteen stories exist as a literary collection from House of Zolo, as audio recordings, online performance pieces, and videos. JE has merged writing, performance, and Virtual Reality to create this multi-layered project. From 2023 to 2025, performances and media presentations took place in Second Life, NEOS VR, and VR Chat.
JE collaborated with the talented avatar builder, Ultranique, to create custom avatars for the live VR events. Currently, JE’s World of Warcraft character is delivering storytelling interventions around Azeroth.
The machinima video for the story Hysteria was recently screened and is currently installed at Exhibit A Gallery, on the Odyssey Simulator.
About Hysteria
Hysteria is a dark and satirical animated short that blends magical realism with real-life experience to explore the medical gas-lighting of women in Western healthcare. When Mabel’s treatment is abruptly taken away, her search for relief spirals into the surreal. What begins as a fight for survival turns into an uncanny transformation when Mabel discovers unexpected superpowers. Created using machinima, Hysteria is a bold critique of how women’s bodies are controlled, questioned, and misunderstood.
Hysteria is adapted from Solo’s short story of the same name. The short story is about to be released (again) in the Second Edition of Solo’s story collection Nature, Human (House of Zolo).
ABOUT THE BOOK
Step into a world of haunting fiction with this expanded Second Edition of Nature, Human, by award-winning author JE Solo. Now featuring four new stories, this collection explores near and far-flung futures, unravelling the fragile and often dysfunctional ties between human beings and the natural world.
Delivered in JE Solo’s direct and energetic style, these stories blur the lines between the everyday and the extraordinary. From delicate bonds with nature to unexpected twists of fate, Nature, Human contemplates our place in a shifting, uncertain future. Themes of separation, survival, and resilience echo throughout, asking how our individual choices shape the world around us.
Character-driven and imaginative, Nature, Human offers fourteen original stories that will stay with you long after the final page.
Revenge – two women are forced to share the same man; The Heart of a Bear – a survivor of the apocalypse provides for her children; Heart Murmur – star-crossed lovers share a supernatural connection; Nature – a homemaker becomes unnerved while caring for the family pets; Hysteria – a woman scours the city in search of estrogen patches; Somnambulist – Dad has been going out for walks at night; Nana – a family takes Nana for a Sunday drive; Old Joe – two inhabitants of Tent City face an uncertain future; Damage – Two women navigate a cruel system to access medical care; Blue Lake – a world leader with psychic powers averts a disaster; Last Words – an injured worker has only one hundred words left to speak; Vision – an old person takes a stand to protect the last living things on earth; Second Sight – a mother prepares a magical gift for her daughter; Yolo – a grandmother decides to travel to the edge of the world
TITLE: Nature, Human
AUTHOR: JE Solo
PUBLISHER: House of Zolo
EDITOR: Erika Steeves
GENRE: Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback and E-book
DIMENSIONS: 5.5 X 8.5 inches
PAGES: 168
ISBN: 978-1-989587-26-3 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-989587-27-0 (EPUB)
RELEASE DATE: 01/01/2026
Videos, interventions, and performances from Nature, Human are a part of JE’s Storytelling From VR project, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des artes du Canada.
