Read the full review at the California Review of Books.

Image blurb:
“Short story writers must get to the emotional core of a story quickly, showing the reader what’s at stake, unresolved or troubling. Even though some of these stories are no more than a few pages long, Alison Gadsby succeeds in getting to the heart of the matter….No happy endings or easy resolutions here. The pool may seem inviting and safe, but in Alison Gadsby’s world, the water isn’t necessarily so. There’s no lifeguard on duty. Swim at your own risk.”

My interview with JF Garrard is up at The Artsy Raven. This is one of the first interviews I did and it was so great to finally meet JF in real life after that. Follow and subscribe to the Patreon for a bonus excerpt.

If you haven’t heard of the Book Love Podcast, then you should start following them because my interview with Matt from Ohio is the best interview of my life. 

“Together, we explore how horror, surrealism, and unsettling realism can reveal deeper truths about trauma, empathy, patriarchy, intrusive thoughts, and what it means to endure in the modern world. We also dive into the role of feminism in literature, the intersection of mental health and societal systems, the “male loneliness epidemic,” and how fiction can challenge the ways we understand both ourselves and each other. It’s a candid and honest conversation about storytelling, suffering, and the uncomfortable realities many people are forced to navigate every day.”

Listen here. Follow them on Instagram @booklove_podcast.

“Alison Gadsby, a first-generation Canadian writer and literary chatterbox, currently living in a multigenerational home on Treaty 13 land in Tkaronto/Toronto. Author of story collection Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive (Guernica Editions, 2026), other short fiction appears in Literary Heist, Blank Spaces, The Temz Review, The Ex- Puritan, Blue Lake Review, and more. Her novel, Dreams of the Weary is forthcoming (Palimpsest Press, 2028). She holds an MFA from the UBC, and a degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from York University. She is the host of Junction Reads, a prose reading series, and co-host on the literary radio show, HOWL on CIUT. Find out more at www.alisongadsby.ca and www.junctionreads.ca.

1- How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive is my first book of stories and to say it's been a long time coming may be an understatement. I've been writing stories since abandoning my dream of becoming a professional actor/sketch comic and then moving to the UK with a dude I just met (we're still together). I turned a few sketches into stories and thought, when I get back to Canada, I'm going to become a celebrated author. My first story was published in 2019.”

“This debut takes my breath away. Characters driven to torment themselves and others. Gut-kick dialogue, funny and heartbreaking and real. Fierce love mixes with histories of damage, ongoing damage. Several of the nineteen stories have speculative elements, such as humanoids that (who?) continually seek more—power, intimacy, agency—as their wily owners struggle to defeat them.”

Read more from Laura Rock-Gaughan.

Canada Reads Inspired is a fantastic podcast hosted by Rebbecca and Tara, one American, one Canadian, who love Canada Reads.

Listen to my interview with Tara here.

Wendy J. Fox writes: “In this linked collection of speculative fiction, an accountant who is learning to swim is interrogated by her humanoid companion; a woman is unanchored in time and cannot remember giving birth to her daughter or even who she is; and in the title story, a couple argues incessantly and from such deep unhappiness the woman dreams hopefully of contracting a fatal tumor. Gadsby’s stories have simmering resentment, the cruelty of children, and the terror of never belonging as characters right alongside her unhappy people, threaded together with recurring themes. The effect is a glittering collection with high emotional tension.“

Especially that my name sits alongside Hollay Ghadery and Kim Fu… like what the actual?? If you know how much I have read Kim’s book, for a greater understanding of domestic horror, for her gift of dark characters doing impressively fucked up things, you will know why she’s one of go-to short story writers!

“I met Alison Gadsby many moons ago at the Toronto Junction Reads Prose reading series she’s been curating and hosting for nearly two decades now. Alison is a bright light in a big city, passionately shining her light on prose writers, offering them a friendly stage in which to read and share and sell their books. Not only does Alison curate and host, she also delivers thoughtful, well-written book reviews…which she’s been doing for years as well. She is avid and attentive on social media, and hosts Live on Instagram – The First Thirty a monthly conversation with writers. She’s the kinda gal you witness and think ‘how the heck does she do it all?’!”

Breathing is How Some People Stay Alive as chosen as a Spring 2026 title on CBC Books Canadian Fiction list!!!

“Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive is a collection of short stories brimming with elements of psychological realism, horror and speculative fiction, all tied together by the different types of life-altering love.”