Between Friends

Between Friends explores, in thirty-six texts, friendship in the modern world across a range of scenarios. Several texts investigate the special nature of male sporting affinities while others reveal the pleasures and disappointments of friendships with literary writers. The collection’s concern with the neuroses of masculinity is evident in ten vignettes devoted to male clothing, bodily adornment or sports equipment. The last six stories, mostly based on archival photographs, imagine scenarios of extreme male anguish or difficulty.

Overall the collection is a provocative psychological study of sometimes unconventional relationships which takes readers to a new level of understanding of the bonds between individuals. A particular strength of the work is its vivid powers of evocation – of scenarios, events and relationships – and its witty and often humorous expression of the significance of the situations recounted. Ranging over a wide spectrum of social and sporting subjects and interactions – from boxing to fashion, from the gym to home situation, from war to peace, from exotic places to familiar environments – the stories’ varied styles and forms aim to capture the particular flavour of the experiences recounted.

An Element of Mystery

An Element of Mystery combines complex human emotions along with ghosts and mysteries of Egypt that come together in one compilation of stories and poetry.

An array of poems that delve into the mysteries of emotions – anger, depression, anxiety and loss – as well as what the stars can hold and the journey of a waterdrop, examining them in a unique style that will allow you to begin to understand some of the complex ideas around them.

Allow yourself to be transported to the wonders of Egypt in The Pharaoh’s Curse. Feel the terror of awakening on a ship that you have no recollection of getting onboard in Pressganged into the Navy. Finally, follow Henry as he collects the clues that will guide him to his lost fortune in The Mystery of the Red Diamond.

An Element of Mystery will help you question how you see the mysteries of Life.

All the Young Dudes

Question: What do you get when you cross a not-so-lovable rogue with an uptight lawyer and throw a little Elvis into the mix?

Answer: A thoroughly ripping page-turner of a yarn and a permanent residency in Heartbreak Hotel. Ellie Russell could certainly be forgiven for thinking somebody up there doesn’t like her. Laugh with her, cry with her – be very glad you’re not her!

A Tale from All My Sisters

The seventy-two individual short stories in the book are based on the tales of seventy-two real women. 

These tales are a reflection of the diverse lives and dilemmas that many women all over the world today face, and the inner strength that women can have to overcome adversity. 

The book begins with a story of a woman who leaves everything she has behind and takes the leap of faith in moving to England in the early 1960s. It then follows different women, covering issues such as homelessness, cancer, adoption, death, motherhood and transgender. It highlights the reality that age, race, religion and class are not the only difficulties that women all over the world encounter.

A Selection of Short Stories with Unresolved Endings

It is a bright sunny morning, and a giant of a man is walking through bracken fern. Suddenly, he hears a voice from a tiny fairy down below: he's accidentally stood on her wing. What happens next is part of a collection of short stories with unresolved endings. 

These stories are based on fiction, although they could happen. With a little bit of imagination anything is possible!

Inspiration for these stories comes from thoughts and dreams and from his TAFE teacher Graham who encouraged him to write these stories.

A Cape Town Decameron

The plague struck the City of Florence in 1348. A contemporary poet and writer, Giovanni Boccaccio, imagined a group of fashionable young people fleeing the plague and spending a “lockdown” on an estate in the Tuscan countryside. They entertained themselves by telling stories. Of course, the tales were all written by Boccaccio himself and he published them in 1354 under the title The Decameron.

When the Covid-19 pandemic produced lockdown in Cape Town, author Stanislas M. Yassukovich decided to emulate this idea, and wrote a collection of over 20 stories which he circulated to a group of family and friends – all in lockdown in various parts of the world. These are the ones his first readers liked best.

Boccaccio’s Decameron contains some one hundred tales. This collection is more sparing of the reader – just as the Covid-19 pandemic has fortunately been more sparing than the 14^th century Plague.

A Book of Short Stories

Do you like pirates, dragons, curses and mysteries? What about magic, or talking cats? Then welcome to A Book of Short Stories where all this is possible, and more. Read on to find out what happens to the mysterious village of Thorn, or do battle with Princess Fabiola Ulrike; will she succeed in her quest, or will she be doomed forever? And whatever did happen to that talking dragon…?