In his highly anticipated, breathtakingly intimate debut, Loch Baillie pens an unfiltered queer bildungsroman that traces both a geographical and emotional journey from his birthplace in New England to where he comes to settle in Quebec.

Raw and confessional, River Running dives gracefully into the intangible concept of home, be it person or place. “No more metaphors tonight,” writes Baillie, “I come to tell you nothing / but the truth.” This collection probes at memory and love, identity and grief, with achingly gentle hands, sifting through the fragments one both leaves behind and becomes.