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: Loree Griffin Burns on Extreme Birdwatching
In Extreme Birdwatching: Measuring Change on a Galapagos Island, Loree Griffin Burns zooms in on a single island from the famed archipelago. Welcome to Daphne, not the kind of island you might go to for a beach vacation—no sandy beaches or resorts or even shade, and its volcanic crater is home to thousands of nesting blue-footed boobies:
For all these reasons, most people who visit this part of the world sail right past Daphne. But there are an unusually determined and curious few who’ve stopped, who’ve gone ashore, and who’ve seen astonishing things there.
This is the story of those people. Even more, it’s the story of those astonishing things.
Loree’s book is packed with information as it traces Peter and Rosemary Grant’s four-year study of the finches on Daphne Island. They studied hundreds of birds twice each year, precisely measuring their beaks, wings, and bodies, banding them, and recording the entire process. Illustrated by Jamie Green, this book is also filled with a clear affection for those “astonishing things” that abound on the island and for the people, no less admirable, who study them.
Loree writes here about using the power of story to persuade, writing through the human complications of opposing beliefs, and toward understanding.
Guest Post: Writing in Ida’s Footsteps by Anastasia Magloire Williams
Thanks to SLJ’s Day of Dialog, I had the privilege of being on a nonfiction panel with Anastasia Magloire Williams, whose text for the It’s Her Story series title on Ida B. Wells from Sunbird Books marks her debut as a graphic format writer. I invited Ana to write a guest post about writing this book. What follows is the account of a writer engaging with her subject with humility, integrity, and a loving heart.