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: Srividhya Venkat on Seeker of Truth
Kailash Satyarthi’s campaigns against child labor and advocacy for the universal right to education earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, when he was co-recipient along with Malala Yusufzai.
I was delighted to hear of Srividhya Venkat’s picture book biography, Seeker of Truth: Kailash Satyarthi’s Fight to End Child Labor. Her publisher sent me an e-galley of the book, and I ended up writing a jacket blurb—not something I agree to do that often!
Here’s Srividhya on how she overcame her own doubts and questions and decided this was a book she needed to write: