Booksmith and The Bindery are thrilled to host the launch for Ethel Rohan and her new story collection In the Event of Contact. She'll be joined in conversation by Joy Lanzendorfer (Right Back Where We Started From).

This event is free, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.

Courtesy of the author, through the end of May proceeds from all copies of In the Event of Contact purchased through Booksmith will be donated to aid India's coronavirus response.

You can order the authors' books below:

In the Event of Contact by Ethel Rohan

Right Back Where We Started From by Joy Lanzendorfer

About the book

In the Event of Contact chronicles characters profoundly affected by physical connection, or its lack. Among them, a scrappy teen vies to be the next Sherlock Holmes; an immigrant daughter must defend her decision to remain childless; a guilt-ridden woman is haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend; a cantankerous crossing guard celebrates getting run over by a truck; an embattled priest with dementia determines to perform a heroic, redemptive act, if he can only remember how; and an aspirational, angst-ridden mother captains the skies.

Amidst backgrounds of trespass and absence, the indelible characters of In the Event of Contact seek renewed belief in themselves, recovery, and humanity.

About the authors

Ethel Rohan is the author of In the Event of Contact, winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize. Her debut novel The Weight of Him (St. Martin's Press and Atlantic Books, 2017) was an Amazon, Bustle, KOBO, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book, and was shortlisted for the Reading Women Award. She is also the author of the story collections Goodnight Nobody and Cut Through the Bone, the former longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the latter longlisted for the Story Prize. Her work has appeared widely, including The New York Times, World Literature Today, The Washington Post, PEN America, Tin House, Guernica, and more. Raised in Ireland, she lives in San Francisco where she is a member of the Writers Grotto.

Joy Lanzendorfer's work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, NPR, Smithsonian, Poetry Foundation, and many others. Her writing was included in The Best Small Fictions 2019 and was notable in The Best American Essays 2019 and 2020. Grants and residencies include the Discovered Awards for Emerging Literary Artists, Wildacres Residency Program, and the Speculative Literature Foundation.

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.