Monique Polak

Goeje dag means hello in Dutch. I am writing to you today from Amsterdam. And tonight I leave for Nice -- and cooking school.

I just met with Samantha Haywood, a literary agent based here. I

I'm off this afternoon -- to Holland, then on to France. In all, I'll be away two weeks, which means I may not be blogging with my usual regularity (it all depends on how difficult it is for

You know the feeling I'm talking about... you crack open a book, you start reading, and within seconds, you know it's GONNA BE WONDERFUL. Now, that's what I call pleasure.

I've

I don't know about you, but I do a whole bunch of things before I settle down to write. Here's what I've done this morning: Got up, wrote in journal (I recommend this as a loosening-the

Now that the revision of Miracleville is with my editor, I could be relaxing... only I'm not very good at that!! Instead, I've drummed up some journalism work. I'm doing two stories for

I'm working on the first major revision of my manuscript Miracleville. It's due on Monday at lunchtime and I'm trying to give it a real push this week. Some moments, I think it

YA author Louis Sachar -- best known for his book Holes -- had dinner at our house last night.

So in today's blog entry. I will answer your burning questions!

What did he

Oh, what a wonderful afternoon!! That's Louis Sachar with me in today's pic. Louis is the author of many YA books including Holes, which was made into a movie by Disney. I LOVED THAT

This seems to be my week for hanging out with twins! In today's pics, you'll meet two pairs of

Yesterday, I did the last of three creative writing workshops at Hebrew Academy here in Montreal.

I've been working with a group of six lively and bright 11-year-old girls. Because I wanted