Monday Cup Of Links #43 - Living Stones, Building For Heat, Disability in Publishing.
Record high heat!
Happy Labor Day!
And we’re in the thick of Mahalaya Paksha, the 15-day lunar cycle where we pay obeisance to our ancestors.
I must thank you all for keeping me on track with the novel. I make it a point to write, if only to stay a little ahead of what I share with you every Thursday. It is so easy to not write, especially with other things keeping me busy. But really, just an hour and a half of concerted time everyday is sufficient, if only I make that time.
Anyway, onto our links!
We’ve seen record-breaking heat over the past weekend. I don’t understand the peculiarities of how my home is constructed, but it stays cool during the day and becomes a sweltering mess at night, and this weekend has been awful for my sleep quality. But how did we construct homes to handle heat before air-conditioning? Who better to learn from on this regard, but a middle-easterner? Not in this article, but one very effective long-term solution is to have a neem tree before your house, and as it grows taller, your home stays incredibly cool in the hottest, most humid summer.
Publishing must make room for disabled authors - for its own good! This is a short piece that makes its point incredibly effectively. Disability and disabled authors aren’t as mainstream as they should be. I’m not very familiar with disabilities or disabled communities, but even I come across a lot of writers who are disabled either physically or mentally. Writing is often a great way to bring in some side-income when several avenues of paid work can be closed to you as a disabled person. Which is why it is appalling that disability isn’t mainstream among big publishers, and it isn’t something easily accommodated on book tours and marketing. Even writing about disability can be quite a minefield, with attempts by publishers at mainstreaming a topic they consider niche by only picking books where the character’s disability is the main draw, which only ends up making them more ‘niche’. I for one would love to read more stories involving invisible disabilities. I’ve tried to write them as someone who struggles with ADHD, and found that that can at best be a side plot. I think we haven’t done enough as a society in promoting stories that enable us to put ourselves in the shoes of people who are differently abled.
ICYMI: Spied… and Banned! My latest excerpt from my Novel-in-Progress, India House. It’s not a violation of freedom of speech if you put significant roadblocks in the path of someone trying to bolster their free speech with research, is it?
Lithops - plants that have evolved to look like stones! This is so endlessly fascinating. They are native to the arid areas of southern Africa, and they can be grown as decorative plants! Now that’s a pet rock that is actually alive. When I looked them up, Google told me I could get a bag of them on Etsy for $9.99, and that they grow well in the Bay Area!
GIF of the week: Making of a ring.