Noel Culleton's new book Classical Women  takes a look at the lives of twenty-six  Female Composers who had to defy the odds and overcome the obstacles preventing them a chance to shine. Musically they stand shoulder to shoulder with some of their more famous and celebrated male counterparts. At last their talent is  being recognised. It was due to these women that female artist like Beyonce, Adel, Rhianna, Britney, Shenia, Mylie, Madonna, have become household names.

----more----Christopher Columbus  is known the world over for discovering the Americas. He is celebrated in many countries with a special Columbus day commenting his achievements. The sad reality is that he never achieved anything he set out to do. He happened upon the Americas by accident but didn't even know it. He thought he was in the East Indies. It was the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci who realised this was a new continent and that is why America carries his  name and  not that of Columbus. Think about it, it would be hard to sail westward  from any part of the world and not bump into the Americas. Yet it is known that the Vinkings had arrived in Newfoundland  five hundred years before, and there is a good argument that St. Brendan the Navigator, an Irish monk had reached North America nine hundred years before Columbus  even wet his feet in the waters of the  Caribbean.  Columbus died still believing he had found the western route to Asia.  That is, in my opinion as pitiful as aiming a rocket for the moon and hitting Saturn. Whilst his achievements are celebrated, his tyranny and brutality are swept neatly under the carpet. It's the same old story . Greed is the great motivator.

 A short story  'Weight Watcher' taken from the book  "The Density of Distant Thoughts" by James W. Corcoran

A whimsical  tale of a young girl's first initiation into "foreign affairs".