Ilana Masad

Ilana Masad is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism. Masad is the author of All My Mother's Lovers and Beings (2025), as well as the co-editor of Here for All the Reasons: Why We Watch 'The Bachelor (2026). Beings won the 2026 Lambda Literary Award for Speculative Fiction.

Early life and education Masad was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up near Tel Aviv. She received her undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College. While in college, she spent a year studying abroad at the University of Oxford.

Career Masad's criticism, interviews, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, LitHub, and more.

All My Mother's Lovers (2020) All My Mother's Lovers is a novel published by E. P. Dutton on May 26, 2020. Written from dual perspectives, the novel centers Maggie Krause and her mother, Iris, who dies in a car crash. Upon returning to her childhood home, Maggie discovers letters Iris wanted her to send to five men. Instead of mailing the letters, Maggie embarks on a road trip, learning that the letters are addressed to men with whom Iris had extramarital affairs. As Maggie meets these men, she learns more about Iris and herself.

All My Mother's Lovers received mixed reviews from critics. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly commended the book for reflecting "the strangeness and beauty of coming to see one's parent fully as a human being". Elena Sheppard, writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, described All My Mother's Lovers as "a mystery, a coming-of-age and road story, written with enough urgency and intrigue to call it a page-turner". Kirkus Reviews called All My Mother's Lovers "an intriguing but uneven debut". They praised Masad for "depicting queer characters as multifaceted human beings who are not defined solely by their sexuality or gender", as well as for depicting a middle-aged women "as beings who desire and wish to be desired",

Beings was well received by critics, including starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews. Booklists Kristine Huntley described Beings as "an incandescent exploration of memory, narrative, and sexual identity", She highlighted the "heart and humor" Phyllis's letters bring to the novel and called the couple's story "a quiet page-turner", finding the Archivist's story "less riveting".

Publications Novels Anthology (as editor)'