Meandering Road

The short stories in Meandering Road were created as my regular contributions to our writers' group in Sydney. It all started when Chris, a character worthy of a work of fiction, invited his mother and a group of friends to write a short story about an oil painting he saw in a golf club. A cap on the word count was the only criterion and we decided to vote anonymously across five categories, including best use of the picture and the overall winner. Thirteen years later our writers' group, named after the golf club where Chris first spotted the painting, continues to create short stories against a picture nominated by the winner of the previous round. From my fifty plus entries to the writers group since 2008, I have rewritten 21 stories for Meandering Road. The characters and places in these stories were shaped by my personal journey across a few continents. While each of them started with a picture, with the benefit of time and free from the keenly monitored word count discipline, I have learned more about the characters and their life experiences. Along the way I met a few new characters. Author Bio:: Johan du Toit grew up in a remote community, eight hours' drive north of Cape Town in South Africa. After university, his first job was as a journalist with a morning paper, but he then decided to pursue a career in brand marketing and later advertising. Johan immigrated to Australia with his family in 1994. His interest in writing fiction was triggered by a course at The Writers Studio under the direction of Roland Fishman. While committed to corporate roles with natural medicine companies, Johan found an opportunity to write short fiction through the membership of a writers' group. He lives with his wife in Sydney.