Manjushree Thapa

This is taking place on August 2. It's set up for UK/Nepal time, so it's at 5am Toronto time--that's how much I care about expanding the reach of Nepal's literature. 🙂 The discussion will most likely be in Nepali. Join us if you're free!

Ways of Reading Because we're readers before we're writers.

What are you reading? Here’s what im reading. My latest Substack post: open.substack.com/pub/manjushr...

It's final draft time. I'm making the final decisions on all of the characters' names. None of your names are safe. They could very well show up in the manuscript--though rest assured, your life stories are still yours to tell. 🙂

Also, if anyone's at all interested in why I use the term "Nepal's literature" instead of "Nepali literature," here's my very long explanation. www.martinchautari.org.np/storage/file...

This is taking place on August 2. It's set up for UK/Nepal time, so it's at 5am Toronto time--that's how much I care about expanding the reach of Nepal's literature. 🙂 The discussion will most likely be in Nepali. Join us if you're free!

This is genuinely the news every day

BBC Radio 4 - The Verb, Harriet Walter, Jason Singh, Gillian Allnutt, Glacier Poetry Ian McMillan is joined by Harriet Walter, Jason Singh and Gillian Allnutt.

Great edition of The Verb yesterday. Host Ian McMillan was joined by Harriet Walter, Jason Singh & Gillian Allnutt. Plus glacier poetry from @andrimagnason.bsky.social & @manjushreethapa.bsky.social. Gillian Allnutt read poems from her new collection #Lode from 22:45.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I don’t know how long I’ll stay on Bluesky. I like it better than TwitX but in general I want less, not more, social media in my life—because life is so brief. We’re almost halfway through 2025. Time is precious. I want to use it meaningfully.

DRAFT EIGHT (Eight of Nine)

On completing draft eight of my novel-in-progress.

manjushree.substack.com/p/draft-eight

DRAFT EIGHT. I can’t even remember when I started it. Completed today. It’s not the final draft; that’s going to be Draft Nine. I can feel the end coming and it feels good!!!

I’m no monarchist but I did find it remarkably moving to hear King Charles open his Throne Speech with an Indigenous land acknowledgment. What a strange country Canada is.

I managed to leave the house on the one day of the Spring when it wasn’t raining! (There was one sunny day last week too so yes, I exaggerate). There were all these colourful things growing everywhere. I think they’re called flowers.

Blurbing is a dangerous task. I just caught myself claiming that a book "casts a fresh gaze." Send help.

Have we seen this cartoon? And this snippet from an interview of Wong Kar-Wai? I’m very much feeling both of them on these long days at the computer writing and reading furiously.

USAian and many Canadian commentators on social media often seem unhinged because half of their posts are about the fascist takeover of the liberal world order and the other half are about the wins/losses of their home sports teams.

Tommy Thompson Park—looking gorgeous today. 🚲 🚲

63 years! My partner and I are at 20 and marvel at the sheer number of daily squabbles that couples such as my parents have seen through. 🙂

PSA: You don’t have to watch the Leafs game to be a Torontonian. You have agency. You can choose to not watch. 🙂

I’m forever grateful to the universe, and to young Bhekh Thapa and Rita Basnet, that my brother Bhaskar, sister Tej, and I got to have them as our parents. They celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary today.
❤️💕❤️💕❤️

Opinion | We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.

This is a sad and powerful video from today’s NY Times.

Tribute paid for disappearing Hindu Kush glacier Yala, which has shrunk by 66 percent and retreated 784m since it was first measured in the 1970s, is projected to join the list of glaciers declared ‘dead’ worldwide.

On yesterday's tribute to Yala Glacier in Nepal: kathmandupost.com/national/202...

As someone who consults every ALTA Awards longlist to put together her reading list, I'm thrilled to be one of the judges this year.

If I'm scarce on social media it's because I'm reading so many great submissions!

Funerals have been held for the Swiss Pizol glacier in 2019, Clark glacier in Oregon in 2020, and Basodino glacier in Switzerland in 2021. Let's hope one won't be held for Yala.

For more info contact ICIMOD's Annie Dare or Anshu Pandey at media@icimod.org.

Dream. Dream of a glacier and the civilizations downstream. Entire ecosystems: our own sustenance. The cosmos. And all that we know and all that we love.”

Magnason has written tributes before to endangered glaciers, including to the Ok glacier in Iceland, which went extinct in 2019.

Carved into stone, our inscriptions stand where Yala stands today.

My tribute: “Yala, where the gods dream high in the mountains, where the cold is divine. Dream of life in rock, sediment, and snow, in the pulverizing of ice and earth, in meltwater pools the colour of sky....

Yesterday (May 12 in Nepal), 50+ people attended a tribute to Yala Glacier at 5000+ meters. I and Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason were asked to contribute written tributes to the glacier, which, if current climate conditions persist, is due to go extinct in 2040.

(Images courtesy ICIMOD.)

Well, that was fun. www.torontotoday.ca/local/sports...

I had myself a mini writing residency in Meaford, ON while my partner hiked the Bruce Trail. And I saw some old friends I’d been missing—trilliums, trout lilies, the bright blue sky, and Georgian Bay.

It’s been an extraordinarily busy Spring and I haven’t got out much, but I passed by the old Grossman’s Tavern today and saw that it’s gone. I wonder if it’ll come back again.