In A Woman, a Plan, an Outline of a Man, Sarah Kasbeer's vivid descriptions of growing up in Illinois recall the coming-of-age memoirs of Mary Karr, but written for the #MeToo era. As an adult living in New York during this clarifying cultural moment, she has no choice but to fully reckon with the aftermath of her own trauma.

"In this moving and propulsive collection, the author explores how trauma transforms us—and the miraculous ways trauma itself can be transformed. In A Woman, a Plan, an Outline of a Man one woman picks up the pieces of a typical all-American girlhood: the abusive boyfriends, the sexual assaults, and the pervasive feelings of isolation and shame. I emerged from this collection oddly hopeful about the process of healing, especially if it can bring us a book like this." - Alice Bolin, author of Dead Girls

"These essays held me as rapt as a great conversation with a smart and funny stranger. Sarah Kasbeer is a born raconteur whose stories name some of the loneliest parts of growing up female and turn them joyful with insight and levity." - Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me

"This book is a treasure; it is a dagger and an emancipation, a slice and a stitch, as devastating as it is darkly funny. To say I loved this book would be an understatement. Kasbeer has a rare gift of exposing her human flaws and secrets—inescapable truths we all carry—then kicking down the door and tracking down a path to redemption without taking any shortcuts or prisoners." - Mira Ptacin, author of The In-Betweens and Poor Your Soul

Sarah Kasbeer is an author, essayist, and fiction writer living in New York. Her work appears in Creative Nonfiction, the Cut, Dissent, Elle, Guernica, and many other places.

Her essay collection, A Woman, a Plan, an Outline of a Man, published by Zone 3 Press in 2020, received a medal in creative nonfiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. 

She's owned by a single tuxedo kitty.