Bici asked Ethel Rohan:

Hi Ethel! I loved In The Event of Contact, and I was wondering if you could tell us about what inspired you and led you to write those stories? I'm especially curious about the first one!

Ethel Rohan Hi Sofia,

Thanks so much for reading In the Event of Contact, and for taking the time to share this kind feedback. The fourteen stories were written over a span of approximately ten years and are representative of the type of stories I love to tell, and to read.

I'm most interested in relationships and strangeness, particularly the remarkable in the everyday. The stories, and the first story in particular, mirror my obsession with violations of consent and contact, the domestic, and familial relationships--especially our quirks, flaws, fears, strange encounters, and longing for love.

I have twin sisters, and am fascinated by those bonds and lack of boundaries, and I pushed that relationship to triplets for the title story, largely because there's great opportunities for tension and shifting alliances in triangular relationships. The same is true of the parents and teacher triad in the story, and for the daughters, parents and teacher trio.

As someone who suffers from anxiety, and claustrophobia, I'm drawn to phobias, and haphephobia (the fear of being touched) organically showed up in the first scene as I writing. I immediately knew I had the center of my story and wrote from there, word by word, scene by scene, revision by revision.

Thanks again, Sofia. I hope this question satisfies your curiosity.

Best wishes,

Ethel.

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