The Desire Question

Laura Federico speaks with author Rachel Khong about her new short story collection, My Dear You. They discuss the Susan Sontag quote: “What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer's life seemed the most inclusive” and how it’s really about desire for experience. The conversation moves through the book's central themes: midlife reckoning, ambivalence about parenthood, and the pandemic's role in forcing a confrontation with mortality and limitation. Rachel describes writing as a way to metabolize rather than resolve these questions, and fiction as a tool for approaching self-judgment with more compassion.

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My Dear You by Rachel Khong

Rachel's web site

The Cycle Book by Laura Federico

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03:49 — Is it better to desire or to be desired?

05:53 — The Susan Sontag quote: "What I wanted was every kind of life"

06:22 — Sliding doors and midlife

09:28 — Writing as compassion for what you're struggling with

15:00 — Social media as desire machine

16:24 — "Trying to become yourself in a time when it's so easy to be somebody else"

18:00 — AI and imposed technology

24:36 — Aliens, ghosts, sex dolls, and God texting all of humanity

29:00 — The pandemic paved the way for AI relationships

32:14 — Courage isn't the absence of fear: choosing curiosity alongside it

35:21 — Wendell Berry's creatures vs. machines

Host Laura Federico speaks with food and culture writer Alicia Kennedy about her new book, On Eating. They trace how meat has long symbolized masculinity, power, and American abundance, and why we have the ability to create social change through food. They also talk about sibling grief and the role her brother plays in the book.

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On Eating by Alicia Kennedy

Alicia's newsletter

Tomato Tomato

The Cycle Book by Laura Federico

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01:00 — Thinness as purity culture

03:39 — The desire question: Alicia answers as a Scorpio

05:00 — Loving the world while doubting collective will to change

08:09 — "No ethical consumption under capitalism" as a convenient excuse to stop trying

10:32 — Eleven Madison Park and RFK Jr.'s food pyramid

17:19 — Why unlabeled plant-based food works and why labeling it vegan usually doesn't

20:16 — The ruthless omnivore as boys' club entry ticket

22:35 — Women on social media performing hunger while visibly restricting

27:29 — Writing about sibling loss

31:09 — Moving to Puerto Rico and critiquing tourism

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Actress, singer, and author Gina Gershon talks about her new memoir AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs with Laura Federico, psychotherapist and host of The Desire Question. Gina resists the idea of AlphaPussy as a guidebook, saying the real message is to know and be honest with yourself. She turns the tables and asks Laura about sex in this climate of swipe culture, sex robots, and a shrinking appetite for soul connection. The episode ends, as the book does, with a rallying cry for self-knowledge.

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AlphaPussy by Gina Gershon

The Cycle Book by Laura Federico

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02:31 — Is it better to desire or be desired?

06:01 — Gina tells a younger woman who couldn't confront a harassing guru: "Until you can do that, you're always gonna be in a subservient position"

07:38 — "Some people say follow the money, but I say listen to my gut"

08:00 — Growing up without social media gave Gina an advantage in reading people

11:37 — Gina describes being so empathic she sometimes couldn't leave the house

12:54 — "People are scared, and you know what? They should be. It's a weird time."

13:32 — Gina asks Laura: are people's sex lives diminishing?

14:26 — Sex robots, swipe culture, and the shrinking soul connection

17:21 — How the book actually came together

18:36 — The gap between what we say we want and what we actually believe

21:28 — To thine own self be true

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Tanya Bush—writer, baker, and author of Will This Make You Happy?—joins Laura Federico to talk about hunger as a form of desire, and why being hungry can feel more alive than being satisfied. They discuss appetite as self-knowledge, the younger self Tanya writes toward in the book, and how desire once drove her toward baking, romance, travel, and reinvention all at once.

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Will This Make You Happy?

Cake Zine

Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

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04:33 — Is it better to desire, or be desired?

05:36 — Appetite as self-knowledge

06:07 — Writing toward her younger self

07:24 — Baking, Italy, and wanting everything

09:08 — Making pleasure by hand

13:07 — Hard doesn’t always mean meaningful

14:06 — Tuscany and the fantasy of transformation

15:02 — The “intern in paradise” trap

18:30 — Compassion for the former self

19:40 — AI in baking and writing

20:15 — Why community still matters

21:30 — What’s real online anymore?

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Laurie Stone and Richard Toon—writers, artists, and married partners—join Laura Federico to explore desire as a creative force and the relationship between vulnerability and art-making. They discuss why desiring is more pleasurable than being desired, the etymology of desire as "wishing for what the stars would bring," and how writers must create space for readers without needing anything from them. The conversation moves through the dangers of self-expression versus art-making, the role of embarrassment and failure in honest writing, and how gender constricts experience. They reveal the surprising emotional dividend of their recent marriage after years together, and why looking bad on the page is essential to good art.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Laurie's Substack

Richard's Substack

Their Vows Column

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03:17 — Is it better to desire or to be desired?

03:35 — Richard on being a desirous person all his life

04:01 — The etymology of desire: "to wish for what the stars would bring"

06:41 — "Desire fulfilled is desire destroyed"

08:00 — How Substack closes the loop of reciprocal desire

09:40 — Teaching readers how to read you over time

12:10 — The narrator can't need anything from the reader

16:02 — Writing as "coming and going rather than beginning and ending"

16:43 — When readers misidentify the project

18:07 — "Welcome to our generation"—on constriction in younger writers

19:18 — The human condition: "the little naked ape trying to make sense of it"

21:19 — Art-making as more like making shoes than self-expression

23:40 — "Looking bad is the best thing in the world for art"

28:26 — How Laurie proposed

29:27 — The marriage dividend

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Grammy Award-winning violinist and acclaimed author Ling Ling Huang joins host Laura Federico to explore the tangled relationship between envy, desire, and creative life. From unwanted projections as a child prodigy to discovering her bisexuality later in life, Ling Ling discusses how she moved from being passively desired to actively desiring—and why that shift changed everything.

They dive into the intersection of envy and love in female friendships, betrayal as a creative catalyst, the torture and liberation of jealousy, and what happens when you finally achieve the thing you've been choking on bitterness to reach. Plus: AI as confessional, pregnancy mysteries, Luddite parenting, why friction makes music (and relationships) worth experiencing, and how showing up—even when it hurts—might be the most radical act of all.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Ling Ling Huang

Natural Beauty

Immaculate Conception

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04:13 — Welcome to Ling Ling Huang

04:45 — The central question: Is it better to desire or to be desired?

06:12 — Traveling alone as a young violinist and inappropriate adult attention

07:17 — The active versus passive nature of desire

08:10 — The torture of envy as a human experience

09:14 — Competitive music conservatory culture and coded critique

10:24 — When her best friend cheated with her boyfriend

11:45 — The continuation of love after betrayal and stepping back as an observer

13:01 — Showing up even when it's painful

15:25 — Writing as a "baby writer" and wanting everyone to talk about envy

16:44 — "Choking on the bitterness"

19:05 — Debut anxiety, goalposts, and comparing yourself to other authors

21:00 — The mystery of our bodies, especially in pregnancy

27:23 — Using ChatGPT as a confessional space

29:12 — What happens when human relationships have more friction?

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Aidan Ryan and Rachelle Toarmino—two award-winning writers who are also married—join Laura Federico to explore desire, ambition, and creative partnership. They discuss the ecstatic "adrenaline rush" of making art, the relationship between absence and wanting, and how they navigate power dynamics in both their work and relationship. From Rachelle's viral poem "You up?" to Aidan's examination of his aunt and uncle's art world journey, they reveal how desire evolves from abstract wanting to deep connection, why intimacy matters more than fame, and what it means to think through writing as two people building a life together.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Rachelle Toarmino

Hell Yeah

You up?

Aidan Ryan

I Am Here You Are Not I Love You

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TIMESTAMPS

05:14 — Is it better to desire or to be desired?

06:23 — Desire as the engine of creative work

07:51 — The relationship between absence and desire

08:53 — Desire vs. ambition in the life of an artist

10:00 — Aidan's early encounters with publishing and fame

12:32 — The discomfort of being desired and misinterpreted

13:24 — Rachelle on rejecting careerist poetry tracks

14:56 — "I want to be read because I want to be felt and understood"

16:59 — What ecstasy feels like when writing a poem

18:21 — How Aidan and Rachelle met

21:41 — "Our understanding of our desires improves as we age"

22:06 — What changes as the relationship evolves

23:46 — The intimacy of direct address in Rachelle's poetry

25:15 — Finding the out-loud voice of new poems

27:07 — The story behind "You up?" the viral Tumblr poem

29:38 — Gender roles in creative relationships

33:41 — Power dynamics beyond patriarchal stereotypes

34:52 — Where desire and power intersect

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Laura Federico sits down with Stephanie Wambugu, author of the critically acclaimed debut novel Lonely Crowds, to explore the intimate relationship between desire and suffering in the lives of Ruth and Maria.

Together, they unpack the complex dynamics of Ruth and Maria's decades-long friendship, examining how childhood shapes adult patterns of longing, the shadow Catholicism casts over pleasure in the novel, and why penance becomes inextricable from passion. Stephanie shares her perspective on trauma narratives in fiction, the problem with making suffering too tidy, and how secular life leaves us without clear pathways for moral absolution.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Stephanie Wambugu

Lonely Crowds

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TIMESTAMPS

04:49 — Why Stephanie believes desiring is better than being desired

06:21 — Ruth's patterns of desire and reenactment in Lonely Crowds

07:58 — Remembering vs. forgetting: The responsibility of memory

08:31 — Pop psychology and the trauma narrative

10:45 — How we narrativize traumatic events through language

17:12 — The compelling unavailable person

18:52 — Ruth as Maria’s acolyte

24:10 — Secular life and the search for moral absolution

25:08 — Religion as organizing principle in times of collective pain

28:37 — Mental illness without metaphor

32:01 — Why novels can hold unanswerable questions

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

In this episode, sex therapist Laura Federico (The Cycle Book) talks with novelist Erin Somers, author of The Ten Year Affair, about desire inside long-term relationships, the fantasies we carry, and the secret inner lives that shape us.

Erin’s novel is a sharp, funny, emotionally rich portrait of two parents navigating forbidden desire across parallel timelines. This conversation unpacks both the psychology and the cultural moment behind it.

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• Laura Federico
• The Cycle Book
• Erin Somers
• The Ten Year Affair

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Welcome to The Desire Question

05:50 — Affairs and the Arrival Fallacy

08:20 — Polyamory: Gentrified Cheating?

12:45 — Who Am I When No One Needs Me?

19:00 — Nothing Forbidden, Nothing Fun

29:15 — Rejecting the Ballerina Farm Industrial Complex

31:00 — Broccoli Mom, Patron Saint of Chaos

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.