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.
Open the Door and Enter: Three Times
I’ve always been fascinated by doors. I’m even trying to use one as a portal in a novel that is, I’m sad to say, currently refusing to bend to my will.
This door. with its brass crossbar latch and its loop for a dangling padlock, used to hang in my grandparents’ house in south India. When the house was sold, my parents moved the door to a new house they were building in a different city. As a result, I have this sense of doors being more than stationary objects that let people in and out. Also who can forget the doors on the spaceship Heart of Gold in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? (The humble one remains my favourite.)