“This Biblical weather had set the stage perfectly for his overnight disappearance, which once reported, would seem like a no-brainer. Just picture: two or three days after a hurricane rips the arse off Dublin, the Gardaí find a missing person’s crappy car at the end of a pier with a bunch of discarded clothes on the back seat. If that didn’t scream out, “Goodbye cruel world!” in neon lights, Ciaran figured nothing would. ”

The Vanishing Act by Irish writer Connla Stokes is the August 2015 edition of Long Story, Short Journal. In this tale, the 'lonely voice' in short stories turns humorous, when the hero decides to fling himself head-first into isolation, in a bid to reconnect with his loved ones. The satirical portrait of a writer in a severe stage of avoidance will be familiar to many who long for both escape, and creative notoriety. Read The Vanishing Act.

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It was rumoured that the farmer who lived in the house with the twelve chimneys, had a set of medieval stocks in one of his rundown sheds, and that trespassers caught on his land doing anything at all, including just breathing, were bundled into his tractor and taken to be put in those stocks and dear knows what else. Boon often sat in the pub listening to such tales and watching them pass from one cigarette curl to another, as faces leaned in around tables then burst into glorious arrays of white teeth and laughter.

The June edition of Long Story, Short Journal brings us to the crossroads of short stories and the Irish storytelling tradition. 'The Cowboy' by Northern Irish author Jamie Guiney is a humorous piece following the exploits of a man whose reputation for pilfering the local farmer's fields may be catching up with him. Photo by Gareth Wray. CLICK HERE TO READ 'THE COWBOY'.

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