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Praise for Horse Girls

“The essays are tender, critical, and deeply personal… Eminently thoughtful and fascinatingly intimate, this goes a long way toward shattering a stereotype.” - Publisher’s Weekly starred review

“These provocative memoirs explore big subjects: childhood, power, independence, desire… Anyone looking to connect with the fire in the belly of their girlhood, or anyone simply drawn to books about people and their passions, will find something to love about Horse Girls.” - Tamra Mendelson, The Washington Post

“To reckon with the treatment of horses is to grapple with a world that wants to both enshrine and shatter women… Has any creature borne the burden of this historic dichotomy as long and painfully as the horse? Has anyone looked at these power dynamics more closely than a horse girl?” - Margaret Wappler, The Los Angeles Times

“If riding horses means borrowing freedom, as the adage goes, this anthology most powerfully and poignantly grapples with what someone might be trying to free themselves from when they seek out these animals. These writers' stories will resonate with those who were themselves, or have ever loved, a horse girl. Each piece reflects the pain, love, gentleness and complexities of life that are wrapped up in that bond.” - Michelle Anya Anjirbag, Shelf Awareness starred review

“These essays stay with you.” - Maureen Millea Smith, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Writers Reclaim the Iconic Bond

Featuring some of the most striking voices in contemporary literature—including Carmen Maria Machado, Pulitzer-prize winner Jane Smiley, T Kira Madden, Maggie Shipstead, and Courtney Maum—Horse Girls reframes the iconic bond between girls and horses with the complexity and nuance it deserves. And it showcases powerful emerging voices like Braudie Blais-Billie, on the connection between her Seminole and Quebecois heritage; Sarah Enlow-Snyder, on growing up as a Black barrel racer in central Texas; and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, on the colonialist influence on horse culture in Pakistan. 

By turns thought-provoking and personal, Horse Girls reclaims its titular stereotype to ask bold questions about autonomy and desire, privilege and ambition, identity and freedom, and the competing forces of domestication and wildness.