Where did you get the idea for this story? I read about experiments taking place around the world in which they were inserting DNA from one woman’s egg into another to correct for genetic problems. It wasn’t a leap to realize this could be used to allow two women to have a child without a man. This sounded intriguing and got me to thinking what would happen if some extremist group decided to take matters into their own hands relative to male violence and created an all-female world.

What other ideas led to this story? Listening to all the political anger of the past few elections got me to thinking what might happen if someone doesn’t reign in this extremism. There could be numerous possible outcomes, but the one that intrigued me came back to the fertility question, a world without men.

Do you feel threatened by such an outcome? I will likely be long gone before that happens. But seriously, I think we should all be concerned about how scientific advances will affect the direction of the human race. Scientists pursue knowledge and I applaud that, but the application of that knowledge is something that affects us all. It is a great risk to choose a path that relies on risky technology for the very survival of humans. And yet, we have done that with transgenic corn, environmental pollution, and other issues. Every day we make these decisions, often by default.

What got you to feel comfortable writing this story from the female perspective? Having grown up with a variety of strong female figures, I got different perspectives on women and their roles than other people probably do. Beyond that, it was a matter of asking myself: if I were reborn into this world, how would I act under the given circumstances.