Evocative and passionately written, Vanishing and Other Stories explores emotional and physical absences, the ways in which people leave and are left, and whether it's ever possible to move on. Readers will encounter a skinny, freckled ice-cream scooper named after Nina Simone, a visionary of social utopia, a French teacher who collects fiancés and a fortune-telling mother who fails to predict the heartbreak of her own daughter. In the title story, a writer vanishes, leaving unfinished work and unanswerable questions. A doctor, mourning a loss, takes up blackjack. After his wife leaves, an aging cowboy is seduced by a city girl. In these stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents and children. Deborah Willis was a winner of PRISM International's annual fiction prize and her work has appeared in literary journals across Canada. Born in Calgary, she now lives in Victoria.