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: Martha Brockenbrough on A Gift of Dust
Martha Brockenbrough (she who wrote that amazingly perceptive book about 45-47, way before rising numbers of the public cottoned onto his deceits and conceits) has now written a picture book that dazzles while it informs. A Gift of Dust: How Saharan Plumes Feed the Planet sings in rhythms, plays with words, and manages to make room for its audience in the magnificent world it encircles. All the way from “that certain slant of light” in the opening to the single word “tomorrow” on the last spread, the text pays simultaneous homage to poetry and the science of a single marvelous natural phenomenon. I asked Martha to tell me more about where this book came from.