Wanting

ways our cravings and our willingness to articulate them often lead to new understandings about ourselves, about the people around us, about the influence we have on the world around us, about how the world influences us, and about the opportunities available to us when we choose to share them . . . Over and over again, the essays in Wanting prove Kahn and McMasters s claim about the power of speaking our desires out loud is true, not just because it helps us fully realize them but because it gives other people power to do the same." Stef Rubino, Autostraddle

"An intimate and empowering anthology of essays that explore the changing face of female desire in whip-smart, sensuous prose, with pieces by Tara Conklin, Camille Dungy, Melissa Febos, Lisa Taddeo, and others." Kailey Brennan Dellorusso, Write or Die Magazine

Erotic desire is, unsurprisingly, a prominent theme here. And yet, each individual handling of the topic feels fresh and revelatory, a testament to the diversity of perspectives these editors have gathered . . .There s an inherent pleasure in reading about desire. It is, after all, what gives narrative literature its stakes, keeping us hooked as we root our protagonists on. To proceed through Wanting is to be swept up, again and again, into moments of urgency, which makes it the only literary essay collection I ve encountered that I could accurately describe as a page-turner. But beyond this delight, what sets Wanting apart is how uniformly artful these essays are: insightful and poetic, thought-provoking and stirring. They do what all great essays do, which is to push beyond surfaces and make space for complication. Female wanting, in these writers hands, isn t something to conceal or deny, chase or extinguish, but something to value in its own right because, quite simply, it is ours. Nicole Graeve Lipson, Chicago Review of Books

"In reading Wanting, I found camaraderie in the sheer breadth and diversity of that solitary longing, and catharsis in seeing the rawness of that longing so openly expressed on the page . . . No anthology can fully capture the multiplicity of women s desires, but in just over 300 pages, Wanting really does have something for everyone." Mara Filey, The Rumpus

"The book is impossible to put down. With abundant candor and grace, every piece is a courageous gift." Booklist

"The essays in this voluptuous, multivarious volume comprise an essential compendium of female desire." Michelle Hart, An Electric Literature Most Anticipated Book of 2023

"In Wanting, writer-editors Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters have collected 33 deeply intimate and thoughtful essays by women writers on the range of what constitutes desire . . . Wanting is at its best when it's demonstrating the wide scope of what desire can mean, what forms it can take and what its object might be. Like the wide range of topics in this collection, the styles here are a potpourri of prose, wistful and tender one minute, razor-sharp and raw the next . . . Wanting is a wide-ranging collection about desire by women writers that is, like wanting itself, haunting, poignant, vicious, meditative and hopeful, all at once." Alice Martin, Shelf Awareness

"Editors Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters offer a thought-provoking collection that deserves to be talked about by readers." Library Journal (starred review)

"An impassioned anthology of women s perspectives on desire . . . The wide-ranging essays reflect the diversity of their authors while sharing a captivating rawness and sincerity. The result is a striking and powerful compendium on the multifaceted nature of longing." Publishers Weekly

"A stunning collection that will change your life, Wanting is a deep excavation into desire's endless forms and perspectives. No anthology has moved, thrilled, and expanded me as much as this one, delivering essay after essay that shifts desire's ground from under its reader's feet. True to its own subject, Wanting is sure to leave you hungry for more." Meredith Talusan, author of Fairest