The Propeller Books store will be live soon. Within days, probably.
Until then, Mary Rechner's Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women is available for purchase from Amazon here, from Powells.com here, or from BuyOlympia.com here.
Nine Simple Patterns For Complicated Women
by Mary Rechner
Paperback: 164 pages
Propeller Books 1st edition, released October 5, 2010
ISBN-10: 0982770405
ISBN-13: 978-0982770405
Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 inches
Over the course of these nine stories, Mary Rechner brings a frank, humorous, and ultimately illuminating narrative voice to the subjects of sex, marriage, family, and work. Her characters strain against expected behaviors and received opinions about emotional life: a grieving woman considers pursuing her dead lover's twin, a master gardener envies the freedom of her widowed friend, a poet considers which of her pieces will work best when read in a strip club, and a patient in the dentist's chair finds her appointment her best chance to reflect on her otherwise hectic life.
Rechner's prose leavens moments of despair with moments of humor, and recognizes the knotted relationship between pleasure and pain. The patient, uncompromising work of a writer who has carefully observed the moments of possibility and peril that appear--and that we often deliberately seek--in the journey from youth to adulthood, Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women is a debut collection that signals the arrival of a significant new voice in contemporary fiction.
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Propeller is a magazine that explores and/or features literature, music, film, art, and culture. The magazine is writer- and creator-driven: we present the work of dynamic writers and artists investigating the topics that interest them most.
The magazine is available free on the Internet, and utilizes a dynamic pdf-reader technology that recreates the look of a three-dimensional magazine. (it's not "3D," though. We're not claiming that.) It is published in January, April, July, and October.
You Don't Love This Man, a novel by Dan DeWeese (founding editor of Propeller and Propeller Books),was published by Harper Perennial in March 2011.
"Life, both mundane and off-kilter, is revealed in this fine novel about a man who may not be as lost as he thinks."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Of particular interest--spotlighted wryly by DeWeese--is just what the women around Paul know that he doesn't (quite a bit, it turns out). Paul is utterly sympathetic even in his faults, and as he comes to a sort of reckoning with his own limitations--and with what, exactly, he is losing on his daughter's wedding day--DeWeese details the process with subtlety and humor." --Alison Hallett, Portland Mercury
“Oddly tense and ultimately, cleansingly sad, You Don’t Love This Man wrings an
amazing amount of pathos out of one (only seemingly) ordinary life.” —Tom Bissell, author of The Father of All Things
"The careful, unpretentious opening of You Don’t Love This Man can’t possibly belie the cataclysm of interpersonal drama it contains. . . . The story has left me in that strange place between emotional exhaustion and raw, refreshed excitement for life. This amazing novel is why novels exist." --Patrick Somerville, author of The Universe in Miniature in Miniature
Context began as a group of writers, designers, and developers helping each other complete creative projects: a magazine, a publishing company, and a variety of web sites. In order to make these projects succeed, they had to become experts not only in writing and editing, but also in document design, web development, social media, public relations, and brand promotion.
Successful projects generate response. They were quickly asked about how they accomplished what they did, and whether they would do it for others. Eventually, it made sense to formalize their operations as Context.
They now offer their expertise to clients who are ambitious, creative, and commited to sound strategies for future success.
Propeller Books is an independent press run by a group of writers and editors interested in creating well designed books of high literary merit. The company is not a non-profit, but neither is it motivated by profit. There are no full-time employees--the editors who run Propeller Books make their livings elsewhere. This arrangement offers the company a degree of artistic freedom.
Propeller Books does not take submissions. Our editors, in the course of their own work lives, read, write, speak, or otherwise collaborate with many other writers, designers, and artists. Propeller Books exists to publish the work of these writers and others we admire.
We are primarily interested in literary forms that more agressively profit-driven publishers often pass over because they feel the forms do not sell well.
We currently plan on publishing and promoting one title per year.
Our books are available for purchase from Amazon, Powells.com, and in many independent bookstores. We will provide a list of stores carrying the book soon.
Please check "Events" in the tabbed information to the left to find a list of our authors' appearances. Additional news, reviews, and information about Propeller Books are collected on our News page.