In Kelcey Parker’s tales of twisted domesticity, a woman gives her family up for Lent; a mother finds redemption at Chuck E. Cheese; a former best-friend-forever wreaks baby shower havoc; a bride swallows a housefly at the altar; and a suburbanite’s obsession with “memory books” puts her family in jeopardy. These stories offer a contemporary and dryly funny view of marriage, parenting and loss. Fans of Lorrie Moore and Antonya Nelson will find kinship in Parker’s wit and generosity of spirit. This debut collection marks the appearance of a writer with a new perspective on family, home, and an evolving American subculture.
Praise for For Sale By Owner
“If there’s a book that can cure what ails us, then it’s Kelcey Parker’s amazing story collection, For Sale by Owner. These are fantastical, ingenious, deeply imagined and felt stories about the homes, families, jobs, lives that we dream about, that we disappoint and are disappointed by in equal measure. In Parker’s hands, our dead ends become something other than dead ends, something hopeful and beautiful and mysterious. Art, in other words. What a first book!” – Brock Clarke
Kelcey Parker grew up in one suburb after another. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, Redivider, Bellingham Review, Santa Monica Review, Western Humanities Review, Indiana Review, Portland Review, Sycamore Review, and twice in Image, where she was featured as Artist of the Month in November 2009. She has also published reviews and scholarship on contemporary fiction, and is a contributing writer for the Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. Parker has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Cincinnati, and currently lives with her husband and daughter in Northern Indiana, where she is an assistant professor at Indiana University South Bend. 
