Tara sits down for a chat with Canadian author Alison Gadsby, a first-generation Canadian living in Tkaronto, about her debut collection of short stories, Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive, published by Guernica Editions in spring 2026.

https://guernicaeditions.com/en-us/products/breathing-is-how-some-people-stay-alive

"Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive blurs the lines between horror, catastrophic speculative fiction, and psychological realism in a collection that might best be described as weird fiction. These connected stories offer dark reconstructions of lives brimming with desperate loneliness. They allow us to bear witness to the life-altering love of sisters, brothers, mothers… the life-altering love that buoys them as they struggle to stay afloat in the wake of childhoods they merely survived."

https://junctionreads.ca

Books and Authors mentioned:

Weird Babies by Jaclyn Desforges
Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality by Lindsay Wong
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
Rafael Has Pretty Eyes by Elaine McCluskey
Widow Fantasies by Hollay Ghadery
Every Night I Dream I'm a Monk, Every Night I Dream I'm a Monster by Damian Tarnopolsky
Last Woman; Bad Endings by Carleigh Baker
A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway
A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News by Cary Fagan
Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Layaway Child by Chanel Sutherland
Remaindered People & Other Stories by Pratap Reddy
Skin by Catherine Bush
Chrysalis; Kiss of Crimson Ash by Anuja Varghese
Smash & Grab by Mark Anthony Jarman
Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
The Longest Way to Eat a Melon by Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross
Pizza Before We Die: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza by Hassani Kanafani
Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen
Wonderland Road by Carrianne Leung
Stan on Guard by K.R. Wilson
The Lost Queen by Heidi von Palleske

"Poet pals" going on tour with Alison:

Sublunary by Lisa Richter
Ajar by Margo LaPierre
Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea by Liz Worth

Interview - Alison Gadsby and Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive