AUTHOR

Mary Rechner is the author of the story collection Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women, named to the long list for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the novella The Opposite of Wow, published in the Hong Kong Review. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as New Letters, Harvard Review, Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, and Washington Square. Her criticism and essays have appeared in Litro, The Believer, Oregon Humanities, and the Oregonian. Treat is a word and music collaboration curated by Rechner and produced by Core Productions. A recipient of fellowships from Literary Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, as well as residencies from Caldera and the Vermont Studio Center, Rechner taught fiction writing at Portland State University and the University of Portland, and now teaches media arts to high school students.

PRAISE

"The nine stories have a distinct ring of truth and a narrow range of experience that feels personal, closely observed. A child's bare foot isn't just small, instead 'her heels were so close to her toes.' With no frills, no gimmicks, just a gimlet eye and quicksilver prose, Rechner defamiliarizes the mundane and makes it marvelous." —Malena Watrous, The Believer

"A tight, incisive and darkly funny series of vignettes about mothers, wives and the people who unwittingly become them." —Kelly Clarke, Willamette Week

"Nine Simple Patterns is cockeyed smart, sharply written, and very funny. A much-needed new voice for women and men has arrived in this debut collection." —Nancy Zafris, The Kenyon Review

"The more I think about these stories, the more I appreciate their quiet brilliance." —Sheila Ashdown, Powells.com Review of the Day

"Mary Rechner's astounding, perfectly wrought stories of what it means to be a modern woman are witty, provocative, and honest enough to make you gasp. She's the Mary Gaitskill of motherhood." —Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

"Rechner’s collection [is] lovely to behold, well-designed and smart. The book has French flaps and thick pages with soft ragged edges known in publishing as a deckle edge...And the stories are just as strong. Most of Rechner’s protagonists are smart women engaging in moments of mischief or brutal honesty or both." —Jamie Passaro, Eugene Register-Guard

"Mary's writing is spare and exact. Her words are chosen with great care. This is the kind of writing that takes time to create and thus is wonderful to read. Truly lovely." —Jennifer Lauck, Prolifically Raw

"Her stories, told in lucid, seamless prose, feel instantly familiar, like continuing a conversation with an old friend." —Karen Munro, Reading Local

"Whether mothers, daughters, or friends, the protagonists in her stories are wholly rendered and vibrantly real. Rechner writes with startling acuity, delving into singular lives with the full-hearted knowledge that to love means to be besieged, to love means to suffer, but that, in the end, to love is the only way to truly be alive." —Debra Gwartney, author of Live Through This