Still Life — Gaynor Arnold

This new anthology of shortlist selected for the Rubery Short Story Award is entitled Still Life, a tapestry of life as seen through an artist's eye, accurately and vividly reproduced in rich colours, shapes and textures. And yet it's far from still, restlessly travelling from one continent to another, making us think again, see the world in a new way, introducing new perceptions. Age-old themes are here: death, loss and grief, disappointment. But, as in all well-written stories, there is also humour, the possibility of change, and hope. We visit India, small communities in America, the Australian outback, a village in the Welsh mountains. We experience claustrophobic shift work, an explosive lunch treat for an old lady, a black albino in South Africa, a humane man who regrets the violence in his own son, a man who sits for still life classes as his life falls apart. The writers are hungry to understand, to explore, to pass their knowledge on to us. Read them, enjoy them and learn.