TORONTO, Dec 18, 2015 /CNW/ - Since the launch of her debut collection, Moving Parts, in October 2015, Lana Pesch's writing has been gaining momentum and accolades. Quill & Quire magazine describes Pesch as an author who "skilfully explores both the dangerous and tender aspects of human interaction." and "sharp and fresh, full of offbeat yet fitting descriptions and inspired similes."
Daily Xtra referred to the book as, "vivid, lucid and relentlessly engaging writing."
Insightful and heartbreaking—with the occasional sharp turn towards the surreal—Moving Parts is a collection of deeply imagined, darkly funny short stories. Pesch's writing is surprising, charming, and unsettling. Her characters are raw and inappropriate, loving and confrontational and completely recognizable.
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 homeless man who may or may not be dead. A coming-of-age road trip includes a tense situation with a gang of professional lesbian arm wrestlers and an erotic ocean encounter with a man with a hoof. A plane crash on the BC coast brings a frustrated artist and hardened 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.
Saskatchewan born Pesch will be featured in the fall/winter issue of Prairie Books Now, a widely-read publication dedicated to promoting books by Prairie publishers and writers. She will also be featured in upcoming profile in Open Book Toronto, committed to showcasing the outstanding range and quality of contemporary Canadian writing.
Lana Pesch will be signing books at Glad Day Bookshop's Cider and Signings, 598a Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, on Saturday, December 19th from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. along with other notable authors Matthew J. Trafford, Nancy Jo Cullen and Tamai Kobayashi.
For more photos, videos, and an author Q&A, please visit: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7645951-cnw-movingparts/
Upcoming speaking and reading events in 2016:
Wednesday, January 13 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm Brockton Writers Series
full of beans Coffee House & Roastery | 1348 Dundas Street West | Toronto, Ontario | M6J 1Y2.
Guest speaker: Trailervision: Everything you wanted to know about book trailer videos but were afraid to ask.
Sunday, January 31 | 4:00 – 7:00 pm Junction Reads & Writes
3030 Dundas Street West | Toronto, Ontario | M6P 1Z3.
A monthly prose reading series, featuring the best in new and emerging fiction and non-fiction. With Farzana Doctor, D.J. McIntosh, Lana Pesch, Gary Barwin, Melanie Mah
Wednesday, February 10 | 8:00 – 9:30 pm Pivot Readings at The Steady
The Steady Café | 1051 Bloor St West | Toronto, Ontario | M6H 1M4
Pivot present the writers breathing life into Canadian literary culture. Established and emerging, time-tested and fresh; we're what's happening in literature, right now.
Sunday, March 20 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm Draft Reading Series 11.3
Red Sandcastle Theatre | 922 Queen Street East | Toronto, Ontario | M4M 1J5
Draft is a celebration of process. Readers are invited to try something new … anything they've always wanted to try but have never had the opportunity.
Moving Parts is a provocative debut that establishes Pesch as a writer to watch. The book will be released in the USA, spring 2016.
Additional praise for Moving Parts:
"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
"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
"Witty, moving, urbane, and thoroughly modern, Moving Parts is a knockout collection. A hip cross-country tour of today's North America."— Arjun Basu, author of Waiting for the Man
Lana Pesch is available for appearances and interviews. Please contact Cynara Geissler at [email protected] with interview and publicity requests.
LANA PESCH is an alumna of the Banff Wired Writing Studio and her writing has been seen in Elle Canada, Taddle Creek, and Little Bird Stories: Volumes I and II. She was longlisted for the 2014 CBC Short Story Prize and won the Random House of Canada Creative Writing Award at the University of Toronto in 2012. Moving Parts is her first book. She lives in Toronto.
LINKS to interviews and reviews:
http://www.quillandquire.com/review/moving-parts/
http://www.theontarion.com/2015/10/silencing-the-inner-critic/
http://melvilleadvance.com/2015/10/30/mcs-grad-brings-cross-canada-book-tour-to-melville/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sue-nador-/how-i-finally-made-the-gr_b_8325040.html
http://www.dailyxtra.com/toronto/arts-and-entertainment/tale-two-lesbian-arm-wrestlers-148619
TITLE: Moving Parts ISBN: 978-1-55152-624-9 EPUB ISBN: 978-155152-625-6 (check your favourite retailer) 5.5 x 8 | 272 PP | PAPER $17.95 CDN Fiction, Short Stories PUB MONTH: OCTOBER 2015 REPS: Ampersand, Inc. Distribution : UTP
SOURCE Arsenal Pulp Press
Video with caption: "Video: Moving Parts book trailer". Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3pPLQd54s&feature=youtu.be
Image with caption: "Lana Pesch, Author (Photo credit: That Photography Place) (CNW Group/Arsenal Pulp Press)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20151218_C8769_PHOTO_EN_567173.jpg
Cynara Geissler, Marketing Manager, Arsenal Pulp Press, [email protected], 604-687-4233, FAX 604-687-4283, WEB- arsenalpulp.com, TWITTER - @Arsenalpulp, FACEBOOK - Arsenal Pulp Press, INSTAGRAM: Arsenalpulp, BLOG: Arsenalia.com
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