"With elegant precision and understated glee, We Had No Rules opens up the ache between heartbreak and self-actualization -- between theory and practice, intimacy and belonging, community and loss. By confronting the regimentation in queer lives and loves, Manning explores the push and pull of intergenerational yearning in surprising ways. Tidy in structure yet emotionally unresolved, We Had No Rules rejects false closure, daring us to come up with our own answers." —Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of Sketchtasy

"Corinne Manning's smart, funny debut collection is a necessary reminder that individuals are more than any one single identity. These characters are the best mix of surprising and recognizable that any reader of good short stories could ever hope to find. Brava!" —Rebecca Brown, author of The Gifts of the Body

"These stories are exquisite portals into the weird, scary, hilarious, hot, and revelatory moments that make up a queer life. I recognized Manning's characters immediately: they are me, my friends, my guides, my mistakes. What an act of humanity to have written them." -Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me

"From its first sentence Corinne Manning's We Had No Rules feels essential, every word charged with meaning and feeling. This book is nothing less than a record of survival, a nervous system on the page, a sequence of stories in which characters attempt to make better, truer relationships that want to defy the structures of language that constrict us. Expansive, soulful, vulnerable, sexy, funny, and broken, We Had No Rules is queer all the way down to its bones." —Paul Lisicky, author of Later and The Narrow Door

Corinne Manning is a prose writer and literary organizer. Their stories and essays have been published widely, including in Toward an Ethics of Activism and Shadow Map: An Anthology of Survivors of Sexual Assault. Corinne founded The James Franco Review, a project that sought to address implicit bias in the publishing industry.