Talk of the Town by award-winning writer Fred Khumalo comprises short stories he wrote over many years. In this vibrant collection Khumalo explores identity and belonging through tales about African foreign nationals in South Africa, xenophobia, South Africans abroad, exiled comrades during apartheid, and past and current township life. At times hilarious and at times gut-wrenching, this is a collection that will move you.

In this unique collection of stories, each story chronicles an emotional dance of some type-the dance of life, the dance of death. Each story resonates with the knowledge that every person must learn the steps to his or her own dance and with the subtle reality that each of us recognizes when the dance is over. In "Lost," Ginny longs for the innocence of a life that is long gone-obliterated by alcohol and lost love. She has lost the desire to live and love; she is hopeless, even in the face of life in the exotic South Pacific. In "The Yellow Dress," set in New Zealand, Joseph Miller is mourning the loss of his beloved wife and wondering how he will spend his remaining time-since he is also unwell. He wanders aimlessly through his days, not focusing on anything in particular. Then one day, by chance, he joins some people at a cultural performance, the type of event he would have normally skipped in the past. That night something happens that changes him-and once again he finds himself joining the dance of life. "All in Order" explores the dance of marriage, hindered by the neuroses of man to whom order is of utmost importance. "The Dancing Hills" depicts the dance of new relationship in which both the tune and the dancers are somewhat unconventional. Full of life, love and emotions, the stories in "Dances" will awaken your heart and take you along on some surprising journeys.

During embalming an arm jerks and strikes a mortician, leaving him unmoored. A pastor’s wife encounters a young congregant in her kitchen wearing her apron and preparing breakfast. A man’s attempt to make sense of why a tornado picked him up leads to a showdown with a cult leader. A daydreaming, gawky kid is appointed guardian of a watermelon that the ocean could snatch away. Love comes slowly, like water heating over a low fi re or extra sugar being stirred into tea. In another story, the love of a father cannot save his musician son. A young woman living in a recognisable future contemplates the end of memory as her body transforms into the silver promise of a carapace. Another young woman feels she should be smiling but nothing stirs in her when her father wakes from death aft er 15 minutes. Battling portentous pre-dawn heat and still air, a bystander abandons removing caterpillars from a Ficus because the idea of touching them makes her squeamish. Elsewhere in the suburbs, in a fi xerupper from hell, crickets screech and squeal, their ringing like that of a demented alarm clock.

When Water Wants To presents the fi nalists of the DALRO Can Themba short story award. Celebrating the legacy of master storyteller Can Themba, this collection provokes, inspires, challenges and entertains with bold storytelling and keen social commentary. The stories range from the deeply personal to the wildly allegorical, playing with genre conventions and inhabiting a multitude of perspectives and unruly voices. These exciting new authors confi rm the pre-eminence of the short story, and its oral antecedents, by delving into the national psyche in the conversations they have, the connections they make, and the themes, concerns and water-soaked imagery they share.

In 1885, Vincent Martinez Ybor, a Spanish entrepreneur, purchased forty acres east of Tampa and built a company town of tall red-brick factories and small wood-frame houses for the workers. Over the next forty years, this community of cigar-makers from Cuba, Spain, and Italy grew into a thriving industry that made Tampa the "Cigar Capital of the World." The urban renewal of the 1960s, however, struck a deathblow to Ybor City; thousands of cigar-makers' homes and businesses were leveled by bulldozers, and an interstate highway stormed through the dying neighborhood.

The narratives, reflecting a coming-of-age in this colorful community that no longer exists, speak of a kidnapping, a hold-up, a shark attack, a deadly duel, and a murder. A teenager comes to grips with his sexual identity, an activist mother resists Jim Crow laws, and an unexpected baby changes everyone's life. In Cigar City Stories, author Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes presents a collection of short stories that provides a snapshot of this lost island in time.

Julian stood on that raised platform in the middle of the factory floor, reading to the workers: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Les Miserables, writings of Cervantes, newspapers, and the poems of Jose Marti. He didn't just read the words; he took on the voice and mannerisms of the characters in the novels, like an actor in the theater. Good performances were followed by the sustained thumping roar of two hundred chavetas, or tobacco knives, repeatedly striking the workers' tobacco-cutting boards. -from "El Lector"

The new century saw a furthering of violence hinged in some bizarre way to organized religion, religions that were centuries old and born of good will toward man. Within months of the terror attacks ultimately linked to Bin Laden and his platter. The initial shock, horror, revulsion and sorrow was now replaced with vengeance served up big-time and brought to you nightly by CNN or whoever had the best feed. The far reaching effects trickled down into the communities we lived in. Surprise anthrax packages, remember Tom Brokaw's little gift at the network home site? The attacks continue today with assaults at Fort Hood attributed to a madman, English transit, in Spain and everyday something new. The recent Shafia trial in Kingston Ontario was blocks from our fictitious setting, imagine... The setting is ever changing in this thriller set between Ontario prisons and the fluid world of terrorists who maneuver their agenda with well laid out plans that cover several months or more of planning. We've grown somewhat callous perhaps to the daily bombings and activities of the Middle East. Picture some of the same events in our own towns and communities, the scope of the 911 attacks on a smaller scale, but with potential to devastate lives. A must read

We like Jeff Goldblum. You like Jeff Goldblum. Helen McClory really likes Jeff Goldblum. The Goldblum Variations is a collection of flash fiction, stories and games on the one and only Jeff Goldblum as he, and alternate versions of himself, travels through the known (and unknown) universe in a mighty celebration of weird and wonderful Goldbluminess. Maybe he's cooking, maybe he's wearing a nice jumper, maybe he's reading this very book. The possibilities are endless. Treat yourself, because all that glitters is Goldblum.

'n Versameling kortverhale wat 'n familiegeskiedenis uitbeeld en strek van die ernstige tot die komiese. Met uiteenlopende verhale wat sowat 'n eeu bestryk (beginnende op 'n plaas in die Kamdeboo en eindigend in die stad) word byna kaleidoskopies gekyk na lewens, plekke, indrukke en ervarings. Deurlopende motiewe soos die bentwood-stoel, familiefoto's en 'n driewel bind die verhale tot 'n boeiende eenheid.

Jeremy's Cottage is a collection of short stories, all fictional, in which ordinary people become ensnared in dilemmas, sometimes not of their own making. Each person asks for help and receives a message through a chance meeting, a dream, a fleeting thought, or even what at first appears to be a tragedy. A beloved pet might hold the solution at times. Each answer sets that person on a path out of the dilemma.

This is my second collection of short stories. These stories are about people, their relationships and the many things in life that affect them. For example, love, sex, marriage, divorce, betrayal seduction and murder. Some other topics covered are alcoholism, drug addiction and identity theft, with the primary emphasis on the impact these things have on people's lives. Check out my blog at: http: //annie-myshortstories3b.blogspot.com