Welcome to Story Playscapes, the Australian luxury Literary House.

Internationally acclaimed, best-selling and award-winning auteur philosopher, Susan L. Marshall is renowned for the breathtaking power, transformation and beauty of the resonant unsaid that lingers across her first era of Metaphysical Minimalism publications. Forged in the rawness of nature and the streets of her origin, Melbourne, Susan’s distinct auteur voice is fuelled by the deep, resonant and magnetic rhythms
of her Portugese and Arabic (Maltese) heritages.

Currently, Susan is leading her work into a highly anticipated new frontier: the official establishment of Metaphysical Minimalism as a subgenre with a signature technique, architecture and style that leads metaphysical literature into lifestyle.

This season, Susan will officially unravel the closely guarded secret style of her work in an upcoming publication, permanently sealing the blueprints of the First Creation Era, while the current architecture and style she has developed, simply continues to progress.

To be part of tracing the style before its official unveiling, explore the First Era collections at the Romantic Spirit Alight Readers’ Garden.

To discover physical editions of the First Era catalogue, view our International Trade & Literary Curatorial.

La Résonance is the signature emotional architecture of Metaphysical Minimalism that adorns Susan L. Marshall’s exquisite publications. It is the heart beat of the subgenre and relatable to life itself, inspired by Susan’s own resonant connections with the French language and culture (13 years of language study) and her time in France.

La Résonance is a metaphysical state of imbued feeling, quality or idea that saturates within and permeates without. It is found in our lived moments and connections with our every day … from chipped paint, raw metal, rhythms of life, an encounter, a blur of motion, a transition of life, time or place … its raw pulse breathes in our heart.

As a form of metaphysical phenomenology, La Résonance recognises that our emotional architecture retains traces of imbued, emotional connection. Deep within our body and heart, these echoing repositories preserve our lived experiences: ready to be accessed, awakened, and relived in a new state of La Résonance at any point in our lives.

-Susan L. Marshall
1 October, 2026.

The Metaphysical Conceit: Binding the La Résonance and Conscious Shifting Form Contours of Metaphysical Minimalism

In the upcoming architectural essay for my new style publication, I formally define the true function of the metaphysical conceit within Metaphysical MInimalism.

Beyond a decorative device, the metaphysical conceit operates as an active, changeable motif born entirely from the emotional depository of the protagonist’s La Résonance, our original, signature metaphysical phenomenology and metaphysical state. The metaphysical conceit exists within a structured paradox (usually two conflicting realities) in the protagonist’s life. As the protagonist works towards resolving the relevant paradoxical conflict, their internal emotional architecture of La Résonance alters, working to claim sovereignty over their lived experience.

Critically, it is this precise journey for the protagonist that leads to moments of phenomenological shift within their human nervous system’s emotional depository. This leads to the protagonist consciously altering and shifting the form contours within its localised environment, precisely mirroring their nervous system response. Therein, such interaction with the form contours, is purely metaphysical in nature.

Our process structured development of metaphysical conceit is evident in all my works, published here at Story Playscapes and also my external publications at Vocal Media. Recent examples of such work includes the metaphysical conceits of: the ‘dark horse’ in Adira and the Dark Horse’; the ‘lost storm’ in Princess Zyra’s Lost Storm and the ‘allure’ in Feed my Petals of Allure.

-Susan L. Marshall
7 October, 2026.

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