Ethel Rohan

Flaming stories of the necessity and abuse of connection, and the persistence of wonder.

Stories

In the Event of Contact

Fiction. In this stripped-raw debut collection, Ethel Rohan's thirty stories swell with broken, incomplete people yearning to be whole. Through tight language and searing scenarios, Rohan brings to life a plethora of characters—exposed, vulnerable souls who are achingly human.

Cut Through the Bone

A Novel

Sing, I

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Cat Warren

Beth Kephart

Diane Lefer

Carol Guess

Sybil Baker

Kim Chinquee

Kathleen Rooney

Tama Janowitz

Kathi Appelt

Sherrie Flick

Victoria Redel

Robin Black

Deb Olin Unferth

Kathy Fish

Molly Gaudry

Debra Di Blasi

Xu Xi

Ellen Meister

Jennifer Steil

Amina Gautier

Jo-Ann Mapson

Elaine Chiew

Tara Laskowski

Kristine Ong Muslim

Natasha Saje

Roberta Allen

Susanna Sonnenberg

Pamela Painter

Jillian Sullivan

Nancy Stohlman

Liza Gardner Walsh

Tara Campbell

Patricia McConnell

Lisa Kastner

Ellen Boscov

Kristin Burcham

Sara Chansarkar

Mare Chapman

Watsuki Harrington

Tara Masih

Robin OIivera

Alina Pleskova

Zalisa Rabin

Trisha Rodriguez

C. J. Spataro

Wendy Stetson

Chelsea Stickle

Julia Strayer

Girija Tripp

Fifty-two writers responded in exactly 100 words to the fine art photography of Meg Boscov to create an anthology of healing visions.

An Anthology of Micro Writing and Fine Art Photography

Healing Visions

At four hundred pounds, Billy Brennan can always count on food. From his earliest memories, he has loved food’s colors, textures and tastes. The way flavors go off in his mouth. How food keeps his mind still and his bad feelings quiet. Food has always made everything better, until the day Billy’s beloved son Michael takes his own life. Billy determines to make a difference in Michael’s memory and undertakes a public weight-loss campaign, to raise money for suicide prevention—his first step in an ambitious plan to save himself, and to save others. However, Billy’s dramatic crusade appalls his family, who want to simply try to go on. Despite his crushing detractors, Billy gains welcome allies: his community-at-large; a co-worker who lost his father to suicide; a filmmaker with his own dubious agenda; and a secret, miniature kingdom that Billy populates with the sub-quality dolls and soldiers he rescues from disposal at the local toy factory where he works. But it is only if Billy can confront the truth of his pain, suffering, and the brokenness around him, that he and others will be able to realize the full rescue and change they need. Set in rural, contemporary Ireland, Ethel Rohan's The Weight of Him is an unforgettable, big-hearted novel about loss and reliance that moves from tragedy to recrimination to what can be achieved when we take the stand of our lives.

The Weight of Him

Fiction. Ethel Rohan knows how to startle the dark. Her compassionate intensity illuminates the prose and the people of GOODNIGHT NOBODY—thirty short stories that are as sharp as they are earnest, luminous stories that reflect with sparse elegance our humanity and our often brokenness. As the moon circles the Earth, always separate but always drawn near, so too the cratered, alienated characters of GOODNIGHT NOBODY orbit others, striving to connect. By turns heartwarming and heartrending, this collection constellates ordinary lives gone wrong—the disgraced Dublin Reservist; the wife jealous of bees; the pyromaniacal mother craving warmth; the one-armed identical twin facing incompleteness; the photographer striving for the perfect image before losing her sight; and a host of others in trouble. Lives gone wrong, but always trying to get right.

Goodnight Nobody

Out of Dublin, a survivor’s captivating story of loss, abuse, and resilience, is a stunning short memoir told with startling honesty and vulnerability. Perhaps what’s most arresting about this work, above its unique voice, above its call to end silence, is the depth of its author’s capacity for compassion, love, and forgiveness.

Out of Dublin

Ethel Rohan

Books

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