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: Stephani Eaton on Taking Her Writing Life Off the Page
One of the great joys of having taught writing for a couple of decades is hearing from former students about their journeys beyond our time together.
Stephani Eaton was one of my students who wrote delicate, inviting picture book text. She also had a rare feel for what lay beneath the words in books she read. Even her essays were fun to read. I always looked forward to seeing her work in the monthly packets that my teaching life revolved around. But we connected in other ways, too, around reading and history and always the way that stories manifest in life.
It turns out that story can take many forms in a writer’s life—and some of us need jobs that involve engaging with other people on a daily basis. Here’s Stephani on how she walked her writing mind into quite another space—a museum. Here’s a museum with a layered and complex history that takes patience and inquiry to unpack and interpret. Stephani reflects on her role in doing just that.