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: Bex Hogan on Owl King
Nettle by UK writer Bex Hogan (“a Cornish girl at heart”) is the first book in the Faery Realms series. As Nettle stumbles into a parallel world, placing her grandmother in grave danger, she’s taken captive by a malevolent faery king and given impossible tasks to complete. If this is reminiscent of fairy tale tropes that resemblance comes from both influence and intent.
Even while Nettle’s untangling relationships of the heart, she finds out who she is and how she became trapped in her circumstances—and what, in the end, she cares about. The prose spools out in a clear first person, past tense narrative, the protagonist’s perspective revealing the story and its setting in well-paced sequence.
Excerpt:
The air was thick with magic, I could practically taste it and I knew that while this place was hauntingly beautiful, it was also undoubtedly dangerous.
In Owl King, we return to that faery world, where the borders between the magical and human worlds are porous yet jealously guarded, power is wielded by flawed characters susceptible to impulse, and matters of the heart can govern the fates of many. Echoes of Scheherazade play through the stories that Lyla tells the titular Owl King, even as her sister Ilsette tries desperately to free her. The nested tales are scattered through the book, some tender and nurturing, others cautionary in nature.
Here’s Bex Hogan herself, reflecting on the influence of fairy tales on writing this book. Welcome, Bex!