Writing With a Broken Tusk
Writing With a Broken Tusk began in 2006 as a blog about overlapping geographies, personal and real-world, and writing books for children. Since March 2024, Jen Breach (writer, VCFA graduate, and former student) has helped me curate and manage guest posts and Process Talk pieces on this blog.
The blog name refers to the mythical pact between the poet Vyaasa and the Hindu elephant headed god Ganesha who was his scribe during the composition of the epic narrative, the Mahabharata. It also refers to my second published book, edited by the generous and brilliant Diantha Thorpe of Linnet Books/The Shoe String Press, published in 1996, acquired and republished by August House, now part of Reading Is Fundamental, and still miraculously in print.
Posts on this site reflect personal opinion and commentary protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Guest Post: Stephani Eaton on Taking Her Writing Life Off the Page
One of the great joys of having taught writing for a couple of decades is hearing from former students about their journeys beyond our time together.
Stephani Eaton was one of my students who wrote delicate, inviting picture book text. She also had a rare feel for what lay beneath the words in books she read. Even her essays were fun to read. I always looked forward to seeing her work in the monthly packets that my teaching life revolved around. But we connected in other ways, too, around reading and history and always the way that stories manifest in life.
It turns out that story can take many forms in a writer’s life—and some of us need jobs that involve engaging with other people on a daily basis. Here’s Stephani on how she walked her writing mind into quite another space—a museum. Here’s a museum with a layered and complex history that takes patience and inquiry to unpack and interpret. Stephani reflects on her role in doing just that.
Guest Post: Jesse Weiner on Embracing Uncertainty
Jesse Weiner holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I taught for sixteen years and became, I’m convinced, a better writer for it. Among the awe-inspiring faculty members the year I joined was Norma Fox Mazer—quiet, clear-eyed, she wrote words that sang themselves off the page. Why do I raise this? When Jesse was a student at VCFA, she won the Norma Fox Mazer Award, which recognizes excellence in craft. Those are the kinds of overlapping circles that feel like gifts.
Jesse’s a cross-genre writer and poet. Her work has appeared in places like The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Poetry Hall. Jesse is also a writing coach and developmental editor through her business, Inksational Editorial. She also runs a free newsletter with open submission calls, contests and grants, and other industry info. Click here to learn more and sign up.
I’m delighted to welcome Jesse Weiner to WWBT.
Guest Post: The Gift of Fire by Lola Opatayo
Lola Opatayo is a crafter of words and the host of a generous, welcoming literary podcast, Journey of the Art, on which she invites writers and storytellers to talk about their art.
I asked her to write about what she gets out of creating space for others’ writing. Here’s her piece on one of her interviews, a lovely meditation on what happens when you refuse to treat this writing business as a competitive sport:
The Gift of Fire
by Lola Opatayo
When I logged on to speak with Radha Chakravarty for Episode 24 of my podcast, I was immediately arrested by her calm disposition. Her burgundy scarf complemented the calm in her brown eyes as she softly asked if I could hear and see her clearly. It was 6:30 am in Delhi, where she lives and works, and I suspect she feared that the dawn was casting a gloom over her face. Little did she know that she herself was the light and that she had come to alter my life in a special way.
Meet Jen Breach
This blog began in 2006 as an exercise, a discipline, a meditation for me, a way to think out loud while I was trying to think on the page in my books for young readers. Over the years it has taken on its own trajectory and become a record of sorts—a patchwork quilt of my reflections on crossing borders of all kinds as they relate to writing and teaching. It has come to include the reflections and opinions of others who create books for children and young adults.
In 2024-25, I’ll have 4 new books out, each with its own timeline of edits, copyedits, and a series of proofs, and I am not getting any swifter. Spent years multitasking and living to the thrill of the looming deadline. Can’t do that any more. So rather than shut the blog down and retreat for months on end, I’ve decided to get help.
“Most Illustrious Lord…” Da Vinci in the Self-Promotion Department
I don’t like promotion. It doesn’t come easily to me and yet, it’s a necessary part of the work a writer has to do..
For some years, on my book shelf, I’ve had a slender volume titled Lives of Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a compilation of contemporary biographies, letters and eyewitness accounts.
Reality, Fiction, and Why I Keep on Writing
The post that follows first appeared on author-illustrator and long-time e-mail friend and colleague Elizabeth Dulemba's blog.
I got to meet Elizabeth in person when I spoke at Hollins University's Francelia Butler Conference last year. I'm reposting this piece here because I need to keep these things in mind as we embark upon a new year and the world seems to be plunging into ever greater chaos and cruelty. (More about Elizabeth Dulemba's Lady Liberty poster here.)