Montreal writer Teri Vlassopoulos’s debut story collection Bats or Swallows was shortlisted last week for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. This is an awesome book, and I say so in a much wordier manner in my review in The Rover from the weekend:

“I learned early on that things don’t come out of nowhere,” says the narrator in “Baby Teeth,” one of eleven stories in Teri Vlassopoulos’s Bats or Swallows. “There is always a buildup.”

With such an exceptional debut collection, Vlassopoulos may herself appear to have come out of nowhere. Her own buildup, however, can be found in over a decade of zine writing, a training ground that has served her well.

There’s a mesmeric quality to Vlassopoulos’s storytelling. Her writing is warm, uncomplicated, and beguilingly intimate. She produces crisp sentences that are economical in words and generous in personality. 

Full review here.