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?
The Afterlife of Deleted Text or Thank You, Ben Holzworth
When I talked about Two at the Top: A Shared Dream of Everest at the Fort Collins Book Fest earlier this year, I mentioned that the book began its life as a collection of twenty-two poems about Mount Everest, of which only one, a poem in two voices, made it into the final picture book. I showed my middle grade audience some slides with a couple of the other poems, whose content became transformed into two spreads of back matter. And I showed them a couple more that didn't even make it that far.
“Will you do anything with those unused poems?” Amy Holzworth, Children’s Services Librarian at Council Tree Library, asked me. I said, “I don’t know. Probably not. I don’t think there’s another book in there.”