Darkly off-kilter stories about the moving parts to being human.

A blind date blooms in a grocery store parking lot. Lake Erie forms the backdrop to a botched assisted suicide. A neurotic, dog-loving caretaker writes a complaint letter after an unfortunate leg-waxing incident. While his uncle lies in a coma, a young man befriends a dead homeless guy. A coming-of-age road trip leads to encounters with a gang of costumed lesbian arm wrestlers and a man with a hoof. A plane crash on the BC coast brings an artist and a bootlegger together in a dire situation. These flawed, often broken characters seek meaning, acceptance, and closure under extraordinary circumstances ... though not necessarily in that order.

Equal parts insightful and heartbreaking, Moving Parts is a provocative debut collection of deeply imagined, darkly funny stories. Through language-driven narratives that are wry, moving, and off-kilter, Pesch bravely holds up a mirror to uneasy issues and troubled relationships. We are revealed in her characters: raw and inappropriate, loving and confrontational, struggling to connect.

Moving Parts is an evocative and playful story collection that pulls back the curtain on what it means to be truly human.

A graduate from the Masters in Creative Writing program at the University of Wales, Mary B. Valencia has published in Descant, Existere, Globe and Mail, bunchfamily.ca, NOW Magazine, and with Gomer Press in the U.K. She received the 2012 EVENT creative nonfiction prize and was first runner-up in the 2010 PRISM international fiction contest. Her writing is now appearing at comedy venues across Toronto as part of her stand-up persona routine Mary Bee.

Lana Pesch's profile page

Lana Pesch skilfully explores both the dangerous and tender aspects of human interaction ... [Her] writing is sharp and fresh, full of offbeat yet fitting descriptions and inspired similes. Moving Parts offers a rich and satisfying melange of stories and characters. -Quill and Quire

Quill and Quire

This is a boffo collection. Lana Pesch writes with intelligence, humour, and compassion. Her stories show the brokenness of being human, but with lightness and verve. -Sarah Selecky, author of This Cake is for the Party

Sarah Selecky

Lana Pesch's stories have one foot in the world of Alice Munro -- long, deep, satisfying and unsettling in equal measure -- and the other foot in a younger, jazzier world where humour is currency and the sentence is king. -Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl

Annabel Lyon

[Lana Pesch] knows how to pick the right word and to carry emotional weight with the perfect simile. She lets her words gradually unfurl her characters. -Herizons

Herizons

Witty, moving, urbane, and thoroughly modern, Moving Parts is a knockout collection. A hip cross-country tour of contemporary North America. -Arjun Basu, author of Waiting for the Man

Arjun Basu