Wanting: Women Writing about Desire


 Table of Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Contents
 Introduction
 When I Imagine the Life I Want
 Appetite
 Sex in the Suburbs
 Pleasure Archive: Notes on Polyamory, History, and Desire
 An SUV Named Desire
 Being a Dad Means Respecting the Yard
 See What You Do to Me
 Desire in the City of Subdued Excitement
 The Good Girl
 Bodies of Water
 Last Supper
 How I Got Over
 There Is a Name for This
 My Dick, Your Dick, Our Dick
 The Broken Country
 Allergic
 Halls of Air
 Made of Clay
 Splitting the World Open
 The Thief
 Addiction
 Where It Starts, Where It Ends
 Control Freak
 On Not Getting What I Wanted
 From Woe to Wonder
 Leaving the Palace
 Approximations
 Teach Me How to Want to Live
 Notes Toward a History of Desire
 Coming to Be
 Song of Songs
 Manifest
 Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby
 Acknowledgments
 About the Contributors
 Permissions
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Introduction
 Contents
 
 
 
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 ALSO EDITED BY MARGOT KAHN AND KELLY McMASTERS
 This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters
 All rights reserved under domestic and international copyright. Outside of fair use (such as quoting within a book review), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. For permissions, please contact the publisher.
 Please see permissions on page 335 for individual credits.
 ISBN: 978-1-64622-011-3
 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944797
 Cover design by Nicole Caputo
 Book design by Laura Berry
 Catapult
 New York, NY
 books.catapult.co
 
 
 I am free to be sung to;
 I am free to sing. This woman
 can cross any line.
 —JOY HARJO, “ALIVE”
 
 
 Contents
 
 Introduction
 When I Imagine the Life I Want
 LARISSA PHAM
 Appetite
 MICHELLE WILDGEN
 Sex in the Suburbs
 ANGELA CARDINALE
 Pleasure Archive: Notes on Polyamory, History, and Desire
 KEYANAH B. NURSE, PHD
 An SUV Named Desire
 JENNIFER DE LEON
 Being a Dad Means Respecting the Yard
 KRISTEN ARNETT
 See What You Do to Me
 TARASHEA NESBIT
 Desire in the City of Subdued Excitement
 RENA PRIEST
 The Good Girl
 SONORA JHA
 Bodies of Water
 KAREN RUSSELL
 Last Supper
 TORREY PETERS 
 How I Got Over
 AMANDA PETRUSICH
 There Is a Name for This
 JOANNA RAKOFF
 My Dick, Your Dick, Our Dick
 AMY GALL
 The Broken Country
 MOLLY McCULLY BROWN
 Allergic
 TARA CONKLIN
 Halls of Air
 LAURA JOYCE-HUBBARD
 Made of Clay
 ABIGAIL 
 Introduction
 
 DESIRE IS NOT NEW, BUT OUR UNDERSTANDING OF the experience and the way we’re willing to reveal it is constantly shifting. In “A Song in the Front Yard,” Gwendolyn Brooks writes:
 I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
 I want a peek at the back
 Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
 A girl gets sick of a rose.
 Most of us can identify in our bodies a memory of that first spark of reckless desire, of wanting the rough and the untended, of feeling like that hungry weed. As we age, of course, our desires layer and change, but the base experience of want remains the same. Desire is messy. And raw. And irrational.