Housebroken by Evelyn Walsh

The night of the robbery Ruth had gone to bed early with The Housebreaker of Shady Hill. She was stunned by this coincidence; it was her opening line in class the next day. “We were robbed last night, and guess what I was reading.” The kids hooted and crowed in jolly disbelief, or rather the kids who had actually read the story fell about laughing and the others quickly caught on. Ruth laughed along with them. She supposed she should be more upset. 

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Photo © Aurélie Bellacicco. 

The August 2016 edition of Long Story, Short Journal is 'Housebroken' by Evelyn Walsh, with a photo by Aurélie Bellacicco. Evelyn Walsh, the 2015 winner of the Seán Ó Faoláin International short story competition, often scrutinises the drama of everyday life in her work. Home, neighbourhood and the workplace are observed with a literary lense, and her characters' lives are relayed with wit, compassion and an unrelenting honesty.  READ 'HOUSEBROKEN'. 

The Cowboy

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Photo © Gareth Wray

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'.