Art Showing – Images from Goa Tuesday, Dec 7th in Toronto

A variety of photographs were on display from the works of three different photographers, including a series of beautiful images from Goa by photographer and film maker Matt Marek. Matt spent the first four month's of 2004 in South India shooting films. He traveled parts of Kerala, Andra Pradsesh, Chennai and Goa. His time spent in Goa was the most meaningful. A majority of this photo essay comes from that area.

Lalita Noronha
	Where Monsoons Cry; Stories (Black Words Press) ISBN: 1-888018-32-1 Trade Paper/240 pp  Like a Bombay version of John Updike, poet and scientist Lalita Noronha has crafted a debut short story collection, that blends elements of Indian traditions with the complexities of American culture.
“A beautiful, heartbreaking collection of stories from a gifted new writer,” says Sujata Massey, author of The Samurai’s Daughter. Where Monsoons Cry is both sensual and magical, painting stories—some linked—that read like luminous poems of love, loss, heartache and courage. Where Monsoons Cry is about migrant Indian women who leave home—the physical and emotional space of home—be it a village, or a country, for the unknown. The stories are braided together portraying women characters that are in turn feminist but also subservient; they are naïve and lonely, but also shrewd, strong, and joyful. At the core of this book is the dark tradition of female children being undervalued, especially among the uneducated in India: “Girls are like deep wells of sorrow,” a mother says, “into which you throw hard earned coins. A little splash, a wedge of light glinting, and the money sinks, leaving nothing but a ripple, sting of metal on water.” Where Monsoons Cry is available in bookstores in December of 2004, and on line at www.lalitanoronha.com and www.blackwordsonline.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in Bombay, Lalita Noronha came to the USA on a Fulbright travel grant and earned her PhD in Microbiology. Her literary work has been widely published in The Christian Science Monitor, Catholic Digest, Crab Orchard Review, The Baltimore Sun, Potomac Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of the Maryland Literary Arts Award for Short Story and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Fiction. Currently completing her first novel, she resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is a fiction editor for The Baltimore Review, and a science teacher at St. Paul’s School for Girls in Baltimore.

Santa Claus Live on the Web!
Santa Webcasts LIVE Daily from the North Pole
NORTH POLE and BURNABY, BC, Dec. 8 /CNW/ - Interactive Netcasting Systems Inc. (INSINC) today announced the provisioning of FREE live broadband video access via the Internet to Santa Claus on location at the North Pole.
Effective immediately, Santa will be appearing on the web daily to personally take Christmas requests from around the world. Using the latest in satellite and Internet technologies, Santa will be brought to Internet computers where he will tell stories, take phone calls, play games and interact with children in the comfort of their own home. The live webcast site is located at http://www.chatwithsanta.com .
Claus expressed his delight at being able to be beamed down from the North Pole. "Ho, Ho, Ho I can't wait to chat with all the little boys and girls around the world, Ho, Ho, Ho!"
The North Pole webcasts will be held daily right up until Christmas Eve.
A schedule is posted on the website.