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?
Intersecting Lives in a Larger Cause in Evan Griffith’s Wild at Heart
You know I’m mildly obsessed with storylines in which two lives intersect: Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary. There’s something deeply human about such stories of people finding their way in the world, sometimes against great odds, driven by powerful passions or convictions.
Evan Griffith’s tenderly written dual biography, Wild at Heart: The Story of Olaus and Mardy Murie, Defenders of Nature begins in his subjects’ respective childhoods: