The Andaman Islands lie in an expanse of water in the northeastern Indian Ocean 80 miles away from the coast of Myanmar. I’ve never been, although I grew up knowing they were out there—a far-flung Indian territory. A notorious penal colony was initially established there by the British. It held exiled Indian soldiers who took part in the 1857 rebellion, the same event that resulted in the British Crown taking the governance of India out of the hands of one of the world’s first multinational companies.

What I didn't know then was that among the people of the subcontinent who wanted to throw the British out were the indigenous Jarawa people of the Andamans, a tribe who still call the islands home, and have deep knowledge of the forests they have lived in for over 50,000 years.

In all the conversations I’ve heard about the present events playing out in the United States — A constitutional crisis? An autocoup?A hijacking of executive powers? — one set of voices has seemed conspicuously absent: those of Native American people. So when I heard that my Writing Project friend and colleague in New Mexico, Michael Thompson, was interested in disseminating a piece he felt compelled to write, I invited him to post it here on Writing With a Broken Tusk. Welcome, Michael.

I read Ride the Wind by Nicola Davies in an e-galley, which isn’t the ideal way to read a picture book. Still, even with the limitations of the format, there was something moving and engaging about this book. I enjoyed its depth and scope, and loved how Davies uses the boy’s story to access the albatross’s plight. She also doesn’t shy away from the complexity of human relationships—a representation that’s difficult to pull off in the small container of a picture book. Finally I loved that the child secures his place in his world and finds healing through bearing witness to something larger than himself. So I invited Nicola to tell me more. Here’s the result of our exchange of emails.

I only understand what I am ready to hear. My readiness is the contingency, always.

Here’s a list of three things I’ve learned from editors. I rediscovered them in a notebook in which I’d scribbled notes during lectures at the July 2016 residency at VCFA.

My friend and writer colleague Caroline Starr Rose suggested I read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders (reflections on stories he’s lovingly taught for two decades at Syracuse). Also Saunders is the author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a storytelling feat in its own right.

Caroline sent along a snippet of text from A Swim…:

The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please.The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please.

Indian Shoes by Cynthia Leitich Smith was one of the books I used to make my students read to get a feel for a story that was about more than one kid. A story, in fact, that was more than one story. It was a set of interlinked tales about family and community and connections and a whole way of being in the world. So, when I found out that Ray Halfmoon and Grampa were going to make a grand return in this new book, I thought I knew where I was going. I should have known better.

On a Wing and a Tear delivers the same family warmth and loving humor that is so endearing in Indian Shoes but oh, my! This is a book with layers—history, adventure, humor, and perhaps the most marvelous of all, there's a whole wonderful animal storyline. This middle grade novel is packed with satisfying familiarity and delightful surprises. I asked Cyn to tell me more.

The subtitle of Kenneth Baker’s gorgeously illustrated history of book burning across histories and geographies carries a lyrical note of hope:

How flames fail to destroy the written word.

Breathe that in. I hope it’s true.

In our age of division and conflict, in a time when so many people around the world are retreating into their own little corners of religion and ethnicity and ideology, I read this book looking for the long view.

With the election of 47 as United States President in the rear-view mirror and the reality of a clownish, arbitrary, self-obsessed administration playing out in the present moment, you wouldn’t think there’d be any comfort to be gleaned from dystopian fiction. Yet what did I find myself downloading in audiobook format? Children of Men by P.D. James. It’s set in an England that is rather quaintly dated 2021, which must have seemed far away in 1992 but now feels counterintuitive. But honestly, that was the only point at which I had to work to suspend disbelief.

I smiled my way through Wicked Marigold, a middle grade novel by Caroline Carlson. In honor of Tell a Fairytale Day (February 26) I asked Caroline to tell me more about her experience writing this romp of a fractured fairytale. Here is her reply:

Old Narratives, New Worlds: Some thoughts on the long tradition of fracturing fairy tales

[Posted by Jen Breach for Writing With a Broken Tusk]

Kim Rogers (Wichita and Affiliated Tribes) comes from a military family. Many of her family members served  at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, named for Clarence Tinker, the first Native American Major General in the US Military, and the subject of Kim’s recent picture book biography I Am Osage.

Finding Clarence’s story was a surprise to Kim–she stumbled across a record of him in the Oklahoma Historical Society while researching something else entirely–and the process of writing the biography was likewise unexpected.