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. The blog name refers to the mythical pact made between the poet Vyaasa and the Hindu elephant headed god Ganesha who was his scribe during the composition of 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 and still miraculously in print.
Since March, writer and former student Jen Breach has helped me manage guest posts and Process Talk pieces on this blog. They have lined up and conducted author/illustrator interviews and invited and coordinated guest posts. That support has helped me get through weeks when I’ve been in edit-copyedit-proofing mode, and it’s also introduced me to writers and books I might not have found otherwise. Our overlapping interests have led to posts for which I might not have had the time or attention-span. It’s the beauty of shared circles—Venn diagrams, anyone?
Process Talk with Jen: Barry Wittenstein on The Day the River Caught Fire
Today Jen talks to Barry Wittenstein about his narrative nonfiction picture book The Day the River Caught Fire: How the Cuyahoga River Exploded and Ignited the Earth Day Movement, illustrated by Jessie Hartland.
Chapter endings in This America by Jill Lepore
I didn’t pick up Jill Lepore’s This America to study its chapter endings. But there it was on a nonfiction display shelf in my local library, looking invitingly slender. I loved These Truths, and I was in complaining mode about the state of the world, so I reached for it.
Waiting 187 Years for Representation
Over the years, I’ve come across these children’s books by writers from the Cherokee Nation:
Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Story by Andrea L. Rogers
The Reluctant Storyteller by Art Coulson with Traci Sorell
And of course Traci Sorell’s many lovely books.
I thought of these writers and their books and of stories yet to be written when I spotted this article from National Geographic, a publication that now seems committed at last to making up for its own many past wrongs.