"The dahlias on Sara's dress scrunched and stretched with her body as she spun on the grass and Alana couldn't understand why no one else was mesmerized." Tiny Ruins is a coming-of-age and coming out story that follows Alana, as she grows up, discovers, and tries to understand her bisexuality. Small windows offer us a glimpse of Alana's memories, often fragmentary, fleeting, and touching. When she confides in her sister that she is attracted to girls, she is met with disbelief, and so the secret is kept and Alana continues as the outsider looking in.

Nicole Haldoupis is a queer writer, editor, and designer from Toronto. She's a co-creator and editor of untethered, editor of Grain, and co-founder of Applebeard Editions. Her work can be found in Bad Dog Review, The Feathertale Review, Bad Nudes, (parenthetical), Sewer Lid, antilang, and others. Tiny Ruins is her first book. Nicole lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Nicole Haldoupis' profile page

"I honestly don't know how Nicole Haldoupis does it, but she does - the short prose pieces that comprise Tiny Ruins beam a light on everyday life in the contemporary world - a light recognizable, yet startling, funny, poignant. You'll recognize these characters, and cheer for them. Haldoupis makes private moments resonate widely; she comes at things sideways in these understated, quirky snapshots that feel so real you'll cringe with recognition - in a good way. Tiny Ruins is a voice-driven trove of stories and above all, addictive reading. This debut is a gift, and far from tiny - it's a big gulp of fresh air."
- Jeanette Lynes, author of The Small Things that End the World

"A novella for a new generation, Tiny Ruins is smart, funny, charming, completely unlike anything else I've read. Warm, heartbreaking, perfectly paced. Small moments, deceptive in their simplicity, are loaded with meaning--but as in life, it's the silences between that split you open. I loved this book." - Jacqueline Baker, author of The Broken Hours

"With the authentic, illuminating, and skillfully crafted stories in Tiny Ruins, Nicole Haldoupis offers rewarding and invigorating proof of the power of the tiny and the vitality of ruins. In her hands, the flash, the glimpse, and the fragment capture the complexity and fullness of the pain of betrayal, the hope for connection, and our struggles with epiphany and transformation. In these stories, ruins are not merely the past's remnants--they are also the present's terrain, the ground on which a future is halted or fostered and formed."
- Daniel Scott Tysdal, author of Fauxccasional Poems

"Nicole Haldoupis is versed in the art of the small verse, the flash, the fast. In Tiny Ruins she moves us through Alana's journey to independence and discovery one bite-sized chunk at a time. Mimicking the ways we remember, these fragments and snapshots hit the highlights and the painfully human. Short, sweet, and to the point. Nothing tiny about it; brilliant in its final impact."
- Lisa Bird-Wilson, author of Probably Ruby