Layla Grace Wheelon

Field Guide to Desire Layla Grace Wheelon

Layla Wheelon's debut collection of poetry and creative nonfiction FIELD GUIDE TO DESIRE explores the different facets of identity, including family, faith, sexuality, and mental health. With a hymnal lyricism and unabashed vulnerability, Wheelon details the interactions between these sects of the self, both their moments of aching opposition and the ones of tender harmony. "How much of our childhoods do we get to keep? Layla Wheelon's FIELD GUIDE TO DESIRE examines some of the perils of being a young woman in the South with a vulnerable skepticism and enlivens our language in the process. Smart, grave, and tender, Wheelon excavates the many selves an individual can become in a lifetime. How is it possible to grow alienated from a life you lived comfortably just years before? Wheelon can show you, drip by drip." - Maria Martin