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.
Process Talk with Jen: Kim Rogers on I Am Osage
[Posted by Jen Breach for Writing With a Broken Tusk]
Kim Rogers (Wichita and Affiliated Tribes) comes from a military family. Many of her family members served at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, named for Clarence Tinker, the first Native American Major General in the US Military, and the subject of Kim’s recent picture book biography I Am Osage.
Finding Clarence’s story was a surprise to Kim–she stumbled across a record of him in the Oklahoma Historical Society while researching something else entirely–and the process of writing the biography was likewise unexpected.