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 A couple of weeks ago, Oscar and I adopted a new dog! Introducing Toshi the Collie mix! :) <3
We got Toshi from a place called Rescue Village, so yeah, he's a rescue like Thatcher was. (I still really miss my sweet, precious Thatcher and always will....)
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 This month has been really hard. Actually, this whole winter has been really hard. Not just because it’s cold and gray and the sunshine is (usually) lacking and my health isn’t so great right now—aside from the frigid air making it harder for me to breathe, I also have a lung infection, MAC, that is going to require a year of nasty treatment, and I still have about 8 months of it left. So I’ve been pretty miserable, physically . . . but that’s not the worst of it.
No, the worst part of this winter is that last week my beloved pup, Thatcher, passed away. (If you’re sensitive to reading about pet loss or death and grief in general, you probably shouldn’t read on.)  [I first published this article on Medium.com late last year.]
It’s time for me to address this topic because, unfortunately, I’ve just had my heart broken* by a book that started out with excellent disability representation only to crash and burn in the final third. What happened? In broad strokes, the author did not understand the ultimate consequences of disability. That failure, as you will see below, can have a disastrous effect on readers, both disabled and otherwise. As someone who has battled a serious, incurable autoimmune disease for more than 17 years, I care deeply about this topic, and so I’m going to show you how to write disabled and/or chronically ill people** well. But first, let me explain why writing them well is important.  As I write this, I’m trying to ignore the tinnitus in my left ear. It started this morning when I woke up (45 minutes before my alarm, thanks to a call from the doctor’s office, grr) and hasn’t gone away yet. It’s probably due to the change in air pressure; a front moved in last night and there was a big storm and it’s still overcast late this morning as I type. Oh well, at least I don’t have a pressure-change migraine. And I’ve got my UV lamp on to ward off the glooms.
 This post is a continuation from last month’s. Here are the rest of the (fiction) books I read in the first half of this year:
 I swear, every year seems to fly by faster and faster... How is it time for this again already??
Last year I saw a trend on TikTok, the “mid-year reading check,” and thought it would make for a good blog post. (It ended up being two posts, which was great for getting me more content, heh.) This year I’m continuing the pattern!  In my last three posts, I introduced my AI art obsession. :D I've experimented a ton with the Dream app by Wombo on my phone, trying to get awesome images of characters and places from Hunter's Moon. It certainly isn't perfect, but I've improved my technique (which keywords I use, etc.) and gotten a lot of cool pics!
This is the fourth, and maybe final, post in my series of character-spotlighting blog posts using AI art. I'm calling it "miscellaneous" since these characters don't really fit in a neat category together.  In my last two posts, I introduced my AI art obsession. :D I've experimented a ton with the Dream app by Wombo on my phone, trying to get awesome images of characters and places from Hunter's Moon. It certainly isn't perfect, but I've improved my technique (which keywords I use, etc.) and gotten a lot of cool pics! This is the third in my series of character-spotlighting blog posts using AI art.
I mentioned I'd be doing a Couples Edition, so here it is! I'll go in order of longest to shortest relationship time. |
AuthorSarah Awa lives in Ohio with two hairy guys and writes books about werewolves. 
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