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

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://alisongadsby.ca/home/

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 21^st 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