I have received two stories from 'learners' (students) from Sinethemba High School and have uploaded the one, which ends with a wonderful poem. The author, Sinethemba, writes with English as his second or even possibly his third language, and gives some interesting ideas in his story – he's the one at the back in the picture of workshop participants further down the page. Although there is some uncertainty about the viewpoint character, I think it was well written overall. (It has been uploaded into the Oscar Mpetha section on this site, entitled: Diamond in the Dirt and Blind South Africa)

For those of you interested in science fiction in South Africa, I have uploaded an article by Gail Jamieson called Science Fiction in Southern Africa; under the Sf in Sth Africa tab (part 6). And for any readers who are interested in the Science Fiction Club of South Africa's magazine, Gail as editor has given me permission to upload the latest issue of Probe (number 134) as a freebie sample. Thanks Gail! Please note it is a very large file 1.2 megabytes and if you are not on a broadband connection may take some time to download. To download click here. It and later issues are available on the downloads page.

Finally, for those of you interested in my earlier blog last year about the therapeutic power of story, there was a really good article in a recent copy of the Guardian, entitled: The reading cure: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2235352,00.html

Nick Wood - Jan/Feb 2008.