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?

Uma Krishnaswami 2/20/24 Uma Krishnaswami 2/20/24

Process Talk: Zetta Elliott on Dragons in a Bag (Part 3)

For some months now, I have been email-chatting with Zetta Elliott about her Dragons in a Bag series. At one point, relative to how the deeply personal finds voice in fiction, she wrote:

In 2004 my father died and I accepted a teaching position in Djibouti. It was my first time in Africa and the job ultimately fell through; I chose to return to Toronto and moved back home with my mother.

Uma Krishnaswami 1/16/24 Uma Krishnaswami 1/16/24

Process Talk: Zetta Elliott on Dragons in a Bag (Part 2)

Here’s Part 2 of my conversation with Zetta Elliott about her Dragons in a Bag series.

[Uma] I was thrilled to see Book 2 weaving in the history of Siddi people in India. It’s a history so subject to centuries of erasure that it just made me happy to see it, particularly this way, so loving and threaded through with magic. Can you tell me more about writing this part of The Dragon Thief?

Uma Krishnaswami 1/9/24 Uma Krishnaswami 1/9/24

Process Talk: Zetta Elliott on Dragons in a Bag (Part 1)

Zetta Elliott has long been unafraid to address elephants in the rooms of children’s literature that others might prefer to ignore. Back in 2010, in her Horn Book article, she wrote about decolonizing the imagination:

I marvel at the girl I once was. Why would a plump, brown-skinned girl with an Afro embark on a quest to read all the books she could find by Frances Hodgson Burnett? Was I an Anglophile in training, or was my taste in books (and music, and clothes) a way of rejecting popular representations of blackness, which fit me just as poorly (if at all)? Up until grade three I started each school day by singing “God Save the Queen,” so perhaps my taste in literature was the inevitable result of Canada’s colonial legacy.

All of this really spoke to me, since these are the very elephants I’ve done my best to interrogate over the years. So I was interested when Zetta said in her 2023 Zena Sutherland lecture that “fame and visibility shape systems of recognition.” I assumed that her Dragon books have managed to hit the fame button nicely on the nose, but what I wanted to know was what made her write the first book. So I reached out to ask her.

Uma Krishnaswami 10/31/23 Uma Krishnaswami 10/31/23

Magic and Community in Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott

I’ve been meaning to read the Dragons in a Bag series by Zetta Elliott for awhile and something or the other kept getting in the way. I finally got to listen to the audiobook of Book 1. It kept me company as I began to muddle through the revision of a middle grade fantasy work-in-progress of my own.