J. O'Brien was born in Ireland in 1977 and is a graduate of University College Dublin. He has been a teacher of literature and history since leaving university. He is a member of the Carlow Writer's Co-operative. (www.carlowwriters.org) He writes flash-fiction, short stories and his novella, The Trouble with Sam, will be published in 2014. He has been published previously in Spontaneity, What Champagne was Like, and the Flash-flood Journal.