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.
Giving Thanks: A Reflection on Public Funding of the Arts
Next Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday since 1879. It’s observed now on the second Monday in October, a date affirmed in 1957 so as not to conflict with November 11, Remembrance Day—a case of one holiday shuffling aside to make room for another. Canadian Thanksgiving is a bit lower-key than its southern counterpart but it’s also a time to focus on gratitude. It is equally loaded with conflicting origin stories—Martin Frobisher arriving in Nunavut vs. Indigenous gratitude and harvest traditions predating European settlement. Because Christmas is still so far off, there’s no real post-Thanksgiving shopping craze. Here we sprint from Halloween to Christmas. For South Asian Canadians, Diwali, Gurpurab and Ramadan fall variably across this calendar. Gratitude gets its nod a month earlier.
All of which makes this a good time to think about my own particular reason to give thanks.