A Paris Review Staff Pick and an Amazon Editors' Pick. One of Vulture's 40 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Fall, Bustle's The Most Anticipated Books Of September 2021, Oprah Daily's Best LGBTQ Books of 2021, The Millions September Most Anticipated, and Lambda Literary's September's Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature

How to Wrestle a Girl is a work of stunning grace and rhythm. In these stories Venita Blackburn reminds us she is a writer unlike any other, her stories propelled by voice and wit and harsh beauty. --Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black

Hilarious, tough, and tender stories from a farseeing star on the rise Venita Blackburn's characters bully and suffer, spit and tease, mope and blame. They're hyperaware of their bodies and fiercely observant, fending off the failures and advances of adults with indifferent ease. In "Biology Class," they torment a teacher to the point of near insanity, while in "Bear Bear Harvest(TM)," they prepare to sell their excess fat and skin for food processing. Stark and sharp, hilarious and ominous, these pieces are scabbed, bruised, and prone to scarring. Many of the stories, set in Southern California, follow a teenage girl in the aftermath of her beloved father's death and capture her sister's and mother's encounters with men of all ages, as well as the girl's budding attraction to her best friend, Esperanza. In and out of school, participating in wrestling and softball, attending church with her hysterically complicated family, and dominating boys in arm wrestling, she grapples with her burgeoning queerness and her emerging body, becoming wary of clarity rather than hoping for it. A rising star, Blackburn is a trailblazing stylist, and in How to Wrestle a Girl she masterfully shakes loose a vision of girlhood that is raw, vulnerable, and never at ease.
A Paris Review Staff Pick and an Amazon Editors' Pick.

Bold, witty, ominous and vulnerable . . . How to Wrestle a Girl shines in its propensity to magnify small moments, challenge our presumptions and dissect the beauty, danger and wonder of girlhood. --The New York Times Book Review

This collection of extremely short stories builds its power as it goes along . . . I love how Blackburn lets the rawness into her voice in a number of the stories, many of which push against gender norms and expectations of sexual desire. --Lauren Groff Hilarious, tough, and tender stories from a farseeing star on the rise Venita Blackbur