Alison Gadsby is the author of Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive. Her debut novel, Dreams of the Weary, is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press (2027). She is co-host on HOWL, a on CIUT, 89.5 FM, and host of Junction Reads, a reading series in Toronto, where she lives in a multigenerational home on Treaty 13 land.

19 Points About Alison Gadsby

• Alison hates self-promotion. Like really hates it. This is not fun. 
• Alison is always over the moon to talk to and about other authors, celebrate their brilliance and be a champion of their work. 
• Alison went to Word on the Street this year and is still a bit shocked that she got to share the stage with Vivek Shraya, who wrote a brilliant novel you should all read. The Hystericals.  
• Alison’s Reading Habits were published in The Toronto Star, thanks to Jean Marc Ah Sen, who is an amazing writer and community advocate.

• Alison does talk about herself on her Substack Obsessive Compulsive Delusional. But the content there isn’t exactly what you’d describe as ‘self-promotion’. You can judge for yourself. 
• Alison is redesigning her website. Again, hates self-promotion but loves a well-designed website. www.alisongadsby.ca
• Alison does have a lot to say about a lot of things. She likes to jump into the fray. And she gets very agitated with people who choose to stay on the sidelines. Unacceptable. 
• Alison understands the fray can be exhausting. She left Facebook recently, and it’s been very hard. She is suffering withdrawal. 
• Alison is always working – and reading. 
• Alison has another collection of stories written. It’s about people who’d break the law if it wasn’t illegal. You can read one of them here.
• Alison has a novel, Dreams of the Weary, coming out next fall with Palimpsest Press. It took 10 years to write.
• Alison is writing another novel (#6) and is worried it will go in the drawer with novels #1, #3, #4 and #5. In case, like Alison, you’re not good at math, Dreams is #2.
• Alison has outlined three more novels that she is worried will end up in the drawer along with #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6. 
• Alison is a prolific artist. She thinks art is more important than money. She thinks most things are more important than money: people are more important than money; family is more important than money; community is more important than money; the planet is more important than money. She thinks the planet is more important than everything.
• Alison at any given time will have at least two – and sometimes as many as seven – dogs living with her. She thinks dogs are more important than money.

• Alison despises AI in all its forms. That should have been the first point. 
• Alison once made a video where her dogs talked about how AI is shit. AI will probably steal the idea. 
• Alison lives for the literary community. She’s been running Junction Reads for almost 13 years. She thinks writers need that kind of commitment and support. It’s hard enough out there. 
• Alison loves Brockton Writers’ Series for the very same reasons. Community is more important than money.