In the highly-anticipated follow-up to Putting Out: Essays on Otherness, Samantha Mann turns her keen insight to Dyke Delusions: Essays & Observations. A mix of personal history and pop culture, Dyke Delusions is a mix of body politics, motherhood, and feminine sexuality that showcases some of Samantha Mann's published work and brand new essays. Told in her signature humor and pitch-perfect observations, Dyke Delusions is a collection of desire, yearning, and a search for more. This collection is an important reminder that our journeys deserve to be acknowledged even as the endpoint is ever-changing.

Advance Praise for Dyke Delusions

Samantha Mann is one of the best thinking dykes of our time.

~Chloe Caldwell, bestselling author of Women

A collection of smart, funny, clear-eyed essays on girlhood, motherhood, violence, and desire, Dyke Delusions is both a bullhorn and a balm for queer women like me—those of us still figuring out the language of our lives, grappling with our pasts and forging our own paths forward, learning to tell our truths aloud. Reading this book is like hanging out with a hilarious friend—one who’s not only telling her own story, in all its gory and glorious detail, but somehow telling yours too.

~Melissa Faliveno, author of Tomboyland

In Dyke Delusions, Samantha Mann takes you on an unapologetically raw and unfiltered journey through her life, navigating what it truly means to embrace your identity in a world that insists on putting you in a box. With wit as sharp as her tender memories, Mann explores the awkwardness, rebellion, heartbreak, and unexpected joys of self-discovery.

From her sorority girl days to discovering the power of the word "dyke," she flips the script on stereotypes and shows us that there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to being a woman—especially a queer woman. Mann’s essays will make you laugh, cringe, and think twice about everything you thought you knew about identity and womanhood. Whether she's talking about camp, coming out, or getting caught off-guard by an unexpected life lesson, Dyke Delusions is as relatable as it is eye-opening. It’s like catching up with that friend who always tells it like it is—raw, messy, and a whole lot of fun.

~ Danielle Roy, host of The Bright Side Podcast

Mann’s work is pure, intimate, important. We are lucky to have her.

~Jennifer Cox (psychotherapist, author, and co-founder of the Women Are Mad (WAM) movement) 

In Dyke Delusions, Samantha Mann explores the liminal spaces of adolescence, coming out, and new motherhood with sensitivity and nuance. By experimenting with structure, form, and nonlinearity, Mann reveals the evershifting truths of self-discovery and corporeal becoming.

~Sara Petersen, author of Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture

Samantha Mann's Dyke Delusions is a vulnerable, straight-forward, heartfelt look at girlhood and womanhood in its sweet delights and many perils.

~Blythe Roberson, author of How to Date Men When You Hate and America The Beautiful

Sharp-witted, unflinching, and gloriously irreverent, Dyke Delusions cuts through cultural myths with a chainsaw and rebuilds them with shattering precision.

~Jessica Wilbanks, author of When I Spoke in Tongues: A Pentecostal Girlhood

I learned a lot from Dyke Delusions. I’m a straight cis woman, but am not only curious about the non-hetero route, I want to understand what makes it difficult to take in the world at present. I appreciate Sam’s willingness to share her search for what feels right. Sometimes that’s more than one thing. Sometimes that changes. Life is complicated. The better we can accept that that’s all alright, the better we’ll be.

~Allison Moorer, author of New York Times bestseller Blood and I Dream He Talks To Me: A Memoir of Learning to Listen