A Small Thing to Want

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4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Product Details
Price
$17.95
Publisher
Press 53
Publish Date
Pages
184
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.0 X 0.42 inches | 0.61 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781950413171

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About the Author
Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is the author of several books, including A Small Thing to Want: Stories (Press 53), the poetry collection Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning, winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry (Mercer University Press), and the flash essay collection What the Fortune Teller Would Have Said, winner of the Iron Horse Literary Review Prose Chapbook Competition (Texas Tech University Press). Originally from Ohio, Shuly currently lives in East Tennessee. She has an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and she loves leading writing workshops, hiking in the woods, and eating dark chocolate. Learn more about her at shulycawood.com
Reviews

Despite the book's title, the desires of the characters in Shuly Cawood's collection, A Small Thing to Want, are anything but small. These twelve stories are grounded in domestic detail, but in the vein of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Strout, each gesture reveals a world of longing: for self-knowledge, for connection, for clarity. At times sad, often wryly funny, always deeply empathetic, Cawood's prose elevates her subjects beyond their everyday circumstances. --Kate Geiselman, editor of Flights literary magazine

Shuly Cawood's stories are inhabited by lovely and loving characters, people who wander the maze of human relationships, sometimes finding their way, often getting sidetracked, always living to search for love another day. A sure and beautiful writing style tells us there is more boiling beneath the surface than we will ever know. --Barry Kitterman, editor of Zone 3

These are stories so good you won't want them to end, but when they do, filled with rich characters and wonderful technical gambits, they always satisfy and resonate. An excellent collection. --Fred Leebron, author of In the Middle of All This

Shuly Cawood's writing style is clean, fresh, as she explores the messiness of relationships. Compelling stories deliver characters in crisis, certain to engage readers in each unpredictable outcome. High praise for this strong, clever collection. --Evan Williams, author of Ripples

Shuly Cawood has been watching us. In her story collection, A Small Thing to Want, she performs dazzling pirouettes around questions many of us avoid: what is in our hearts? Why are we concealing what we are really feeling? How do we heal holes in our souls? Is it possible to mend shattered parts of broken hearts? Each story shines an inquisitive beam of light into another darkened chamber. She understands our wants and our aspirations. Her exquisite renderings of complicated relationships will leave readers breathlessly yearning for more. --Vick Mickunas, Book Reviewer, The Dayton Daily News

Shuly X. Cawood's debut fiction collection A Small Thing to Want churns with lives that crave and covet, forming an undercurrent of desire. Throughout these skillfully crafted stories of missed opportunities and hidden transgressions, Cawood leans into what is vital. --Jon Pineda, author of Let's No One Get Hurt