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. The blog name refers to the mythical pact made between the poet Vyaasa and the Hindu elephant headed god Ganesha who was his scribe during the composition of 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 and still miraculously in print.
Since March 2024, Jen Breach (writer, VCFA graduate, and former student) has helped me manage guest posts and Process Talk pieces on this blog. They have lined up and conducted author/illustrator interviews and invited and coordinated guest posts. That support has helped me get through weeks when I’ve been in edit-copyedit-proofing mode, and it’s also introduced me to writers and books I might not have found otherwise. Our overlapping interests have led to posts for which I might not have had the time or attention-span. It’s the beauty of shared circles.
Process Talk: Andrée Poulin on Planting Sunshine
Children live in the same world as we do. It’s a world with violence, inequity, discrimination, hatred. It’s a world in which wars break out, drag on, reignite. If we pretend otherwise, imagining childhood as a magical place sealed off from reality, we’re deluding ourselves. Denying knowledge of war to children living in the relative privilege of a peacetime society only propagates the notion that we don’t really have to care about other people’s children, who may not be as lucky as our own.
Also, children are not easily duped. If there’s something we try to hide from them, that is the very thing they will do their best to ferret out. These are the knotty issues taken on by an unlikely text—Planting Sunshine is a slender novella in verse by Quebec writer Andrée Poulin, illustrated by Montreal-based musician and artist Enzo. I invited Andrée Poulin to tell me more about the making of this little jewel of a book.