About A Small Thing to Want

A Small Thing to Want, the debut short story collection by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood, chronicles the choices people make about whom to love and whom to let go, their yearnings that either bind them or set them free, and the surprising ways love shows up, without reason or restraint. The characters in these stories long for freedom, truth, friendship, courage, and second chances, but each person will have to grapple with the consequences and costs of their desires.

Praise for A Small Thing to Want

The most exceptional short story collection I have read in quite some time.

—Dayton Daily News

Beautifully crafted and dig deep into the realities of family life.

—BuzzFeed News

A Small Thing to Want honors the intimate encounters and decisions that can propel our lives in unexpected directions. Cawood brings subtlety and compassion to such private moments, shining a light on their resonating power . . . . By mining the nuances of her characters’ everyday lives, Cawood creates her collection’s true strength—narrating the crossroads moments in which people choose tenderness when bitterness or cruelty might be easier.

—Chapter 16, Humanities Tennessee

Shuly Cawood’s debut is one to be celebrated. In these smart, keenly observed, pitch-perfect stories, Cawood tunes in to the nuances of grief and love—what was and what might have been—understanding that it’s often the small tragedies that mark our lives in the most profound ways, and she does so with wisdom, humor and great tenderness.

—Elissa Schappell, author of Blueprints for Building Better Girls

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 Xóchitl 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

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

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 writing style is clean, fresh, as she explores the messiness of marital 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

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