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: What if…?Julie Lawson on Bear on the Train
Julie Lawson’s Bear on the Train is a wordier picture book than we’re used to seeing now, yet how delicately drawn its relationships are: boy and bear, bear and landscape, landscape and train. The train is the moving target of the reader’s attention and the boy becomes a stand-in for the reader. I have admired this book for years, I once had a copy that walked away from my bookshelf (maybe it took a train somewhere), so I was delighted to find a replacement copy at Russell Books, Victoria’s wonderful used bookstore. I was further delighted to find that Julie is the friend of a friend, so I asked her to reflect on the making of this book, which is sadly out of print now.