> Skip to content
  • Published: 15 October 2019
  • ISBN: 9781785032851
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $27.99

She Wants It

Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy



From the creator of the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series Transparent, a memoir about love, sex and art.

‘A funny and brutally honest book about what it means to be a woman and what it takes to be a creator, She Wants It is deeply personal but always universal in its unapologetic recounting of a life lived and raw talent shared. Good. Detailed. Honest. Needed’ - Amy Poehler

One morning, half-awake in a shame spiral about what a shitty mother you are because you’re letting your kid watch so much TV, the phone rings.

‘Jilly? Are you sitting down?’

Are you sitting down? means something fucked up is coming…

When Jill Soloway’s father, whom they had always understood to be male, came out as transgender, everything shifted. For one, the moment became the inspiration to push through the male-dominated landscape of Hollywood and create the award-winning TV series Transparent. Exploring identity, love, sexuality, and the blurring of boundaries, the show gave birth to a new cultural consciousness. But also, by eventually coming out as queer and non-binary, the lines on Jill’s own gender map began to be erased.

This is the story of that journey.

She Wants It charts Jill's intense and revelatory experience, growing from straight, divorced, mother of two – to non-binary genderqueer director, show creator, and activist. Written with wild candour and razor-edged humour, it examines who we are, how we make art – and ultimately, who we can become.

  • Published: 15 October 2019
  • ISBN: 9781785032851
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $27.99

About the author

Jill Soloway

Jill Soloway is the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning creator of Transparent. Previously a writer and executive producer for Six Feet Under, How to Make It in America, and United States of Tara, Jill’s first feature film, Afternoon Delight, won the 2013 Directing Award at Sundance. They also co-created and directed the Amazon series I Love Dick. Jill lives in Los Angeles.

Also by Jill Soloway

See all

Praise for She Wants It

One of the most interesting feminist voices in popular culture

The Pool

Fearlessly revealing, deeply felt, rigorous and compassionate, She Wants It offers an intimate portrait of Jill Solway's remarkable life and, simultaneously, a portrait of the larger human struggle to create, from a revolutionary TV show to a revolution in the culture itself. It's a rare and, yes, an important book

Michael Cunningham, author of THE HOURS

A funny and brutally honest book about what it means to be a woman and what it takes to be a creator, She Wants It is deeply personal but always universal in its unapologetic recounting of a life lived and raw talent shared. Good. Detailed. Honest. Needed

Amy Poehler

Jill Soloway writes with passion, fierceness and vulnerability. In She Wants It we read an amazing story of changing worlds – both the one around her, which is forever altered by her ground-breaking series, Transparent, as well as the one dwelling deep within her own unruly heart. She Wants It tells the story of a revolution, both cultural and personal. I often had to pause to laugh, or cry, or to simply catch my breath in wonder. Provocative, generous and inspiring

Jennifer Finney Boylan

What an unbelievable pleasure to see the world through Jill's eyes and bear witness to their incredible journey as an artist, activist, parent, child, sibling and uncontainable human being. Part memoir, part manifesto, pure magic. Read this book

Van Jones

Jill Soloway's writing remains unparalleled by any other when it comes to entertaining us while slyly changing our culture toward acceptance and equality. She Wants It opens our eyes and makes us giggle all along. You will savour every word

Amy Schumer

Most writers hide in memoirs, sharing little real stories. With generous open-hearted honesty, courage and compassion, Soloway invites us to hear true stories. They share the difficult painful revelations, triumphs and failures. Listening to them, readers laugh, cry, love and, most important, learn

bell hooks

She Wants It brims with juicy gossip, vulnerable revelation and rousing calls-to-arms. After I finished reading it, I went out and made my first movie. What will you do?

Michelle Tea

Jill Soloway is not only a stunningly talented series creator, they’re an archangel, here to rid us of the patriarchy. It’s a grand mission and it’s not easy going, She Wants It is their wild-winged, soft-hearted share-all. I loved their book so much – it is about everything I’m interested in; a personal life amidst daring creative endeavors

Jane Campion

Fierce, funny and fabulous – this book is a triumph!

Margaret Cho

She Wants It is an extraordinary examination of feminism, ambition, artistic desire, chance and career by one of the greatest American writer/directors working today. Soloway surveys the trajectory of their life, and the creation of their groundbreaking series Transparent, with courage, self-knowledge, humility, and wit. Their voice got inside me, I was totally hooked

Chris Kraus

A searingly honest and generously tender memoir which seeks, without judgement, to understand the complexities of the human heart and soul

Andrew McMillan

Jill Soloway is so utterly magnificent. I devoured these two hundred pages like they were a delicious papusa bought from the Silver Lake farmers' market

Dolly Alderton

Funny and honest

Attitude

A page-turning insight into the zeitgeist from one of our most essential voices working today

Elle

Told with wit so sharp you can cut yourself

Stylist

This memoir elicits an essential question: Could making radical art with your radical friends ever actually change the power structure? ... If you're anything like Jill Soloway, it could at least give you a way to channel your rage into something positive and even beautiful

Alysia Abbott, New York Times

A total inspiration

Refinery29

[Jill is one of the most recognizable non-binary people out there, and they want to use their fame to topple the patriarchy and create space for everyone

GQ