Blog Entries

Hippity Hoppity Happy New Year!

Monique Polak

I know it's silly, but I just wanted to say so! It's Monday and my daughter, who was here for the weekend, has left to go back to New York. I'm finding comfort in the world of words. Have been working since noon on a very short book review, and soon, I want to get back to my manuscript. After taking a few days off, it feels like I need to get reacquainted with the project. Give it a sniff, see if it still smells good! Hope your 2009 is off to a good start. Hey, Saturday's Books s [...]

Quiet Writing Day

Monique Polak

It's already 10 to 2 in the afternoon and I've been writing since I came home from my run this morning. I had a book review to write for The Gazette -- about a book that I found super interesting, Andrew Steinmetz's Eva's Three Penny Opera. I related a lot to the book because it is based on the story of the author's great aunt's life -- and she lived during World WarII. Though she was a quarter Jewish, she only learned of her Jewish origins once the Nazis came to power in [...]

Fold Your Pants!

Monique Polak

Hello, hello... shifting gears today... have decided to take a little break from fiction and am working on a profile of children's book author Frieda Wishinsky. I'm writing it for the CANSCAIP newsletter, which goes out to Canadian children's writers and people interested in the business. Anyway, I've got pages of notes from when I interviewed Frieda in Toronto in November and now I'm trying to turn those notes into something that will do her justice. I just got to the part w [...]

500 Words a Day

Monique Polak

That's the daily quota I've set for myself. And this week I have what every writer craves most -- TIME!! When I looked at my agenda this morning, I had the delightful feeling that comes when I see BLANK BOXES. No plans!! And then, I sat down to work on Junkyard Dog -- my latest manuscript for Orca -- and when I checked my word count a little later, guess what?! I'd already written 500words -- painlessly. My plan now is quite ambitious -- to write 500 more!! Some days, getting sent [...]

New Friends at The Study

Monique Polak

Hello hello... I'm just back from a lively session with grades five, six, seven and eight students at The Study, a private girls' school in Montreal. I don't think I've ever had so many questions after one of my talks. Way to go, girls! Only problem is there wasn't time to answer all the questions, so I'm hoping students will send questions to the blog (use the comment section) and then I'll answer on-line.

As the last of the girls were leaving the perf [...]

What Do Three Children's Writers Talk About Over Dinner?

Monique Polak

I bet you think the answer to that question is writing and books. And usually, when I get together with my friends Jane Barclay and Lori Weber, we do discuss writing and books. But to be honest, this week, we mostly discussed our kids. It's been a while since the three of us got together and so we had quite a lot of catching up to do. We also drank a bottle of red wine -- so maybe that explainswhy, when I asked Jane and Lori to give me some tips that I could include in a blog entry, they [...]

A Day at the Shmall

Monique Polak

First, let me explain: "shmall" is what some people call the Cavendish Mall, a shopping centre in Cote St. Luc, the Montreal neighbourhood where I grew up. As you may remember from an earlier blog entry, I've been doing writing workshops with a group of students at Hebrew Academy, which just happens to be located almost across the street from the "shmall." Together with the students, we came up with a pretty great idea: to write a fictional account of a crazy day at th [...]

Finding My Way Back to My Story... and writer friends coming for supper

Monique Polak

So it's Monday morning -- already 9:30. I want to get to the Y to lift weights (don't worry, nothing too heavy!), then I'm going to spend some time at my computer. I need to find my way back to the manuscript I was writing (Junkyard Dog) before I got busy with the re-write (On the George River). I started looking at Junkyard Dog on Friday -- what I need to do is re-read what I'vegot so far, make some adjustments... and then start adding to the story. All these tasks always see [...]

Hot Potato... or the Baby Goes to Kindergarten

Monique Polak

I don't know if you ever heard of a game called "Hot Potato." We played it when we were kids, and the idea was to keep passing an imaginary hot potato around so it never landed in your lap. About two minutes ago, I e-mailed off a copy of my George River manuscript to Sarah Harvey, one of my editors at Orca Book Publishers in Victoria. So I got rid of the hot potato... and in a fewweeks, I'll get it back and it'll be my turn again.

I also feel a little like my baby [...]

Expert Advice

Monique Polak

I'm thinking of expert advice because last night I had a great talk with my friend Mark B, who lives in George River. I may have told you this already, but Mark and a friend of his (they both work at the local school) read the first first draft of my book that is set in Nunavik, Quebec and found a lot of things for me to fix. The hardest scene for me was the one with the polar bear. So, becauseI was re-writing it this morning, I needed a polar bear pep talk from Mark last night. It was gr [...]

Less to Do, More Time to Write!!

Monique Polak

AHHH! That's the sound of a CEGEP teacher who has nearly finished her grading! Which means I have more time to concentrate on writing. Did I already tell you I am revising my Nunavik manuscript (the tentative title is On the George River)? It's due next Monday!! YIKES!! (That's the sound of a nervous writer.) But, so far, I'm moving along okay in the re-write. I am a littlenervous, though, because the polar bear scene is coming up and apparently I really screwed that up [...]

Another Day, Another School Visit!

Monique Polak

Today, we Moniques went to Laval Liberty High School. It's a huge school -- quite a contrast to Franklin Elementary which we visited yesterday. Today we worked with Abigail Lawrence's Grade Eight English class. They are also part of the Blue Metropolis Literary Foundation's Quebec Roots project. I talked about writing; Monique D discussed photography, focusing on how to shoot a good portrait(avoid the flash whenever possible -- Monique D says the flash is "evil".) Most impo [...]

Today's Trip to Franklin Centre

Monique Polak

I spent today in Franklin Centre, which is about 70 kilometers southwest of Montreal. I went there with my dear friend and photographer extraordinaire Monique Dykstra . (Monique D, by the way, photographed the necklace that appears on the front and back cover of What World Is Left).

We worked with students at Franklin Elementary School. We were there as part of a project called QuebecRoots, which is run by the Blue Metropolis Literary Foundation here in Montreal. Teams of writers and ph [...]

My Mum and Dad Come Along to Today's Talk at Westmount Library

Monique Polak

Hello, hello... I'm just back from a talk at Westmount Library here in Montreal. The audience was mostly Grade 6 and 7 students from Westmount High. The students were great, very keen and focused; I didn't even need to make comments about their body language!! The best part of today was my mum and dad came along, too. As you probably know, my mum inspired my latest book, What World Is Left. Sheis not too keen to talk about her experience at Theresienstadt, the Nazi concentration camp whe [...]

Return Visit to Hebrew Academy

Monique Polak

Last year, I did three creative writing sessions with a group of very keen students at Hebrew Academy. Today, I'm going back to do the first of three more sessions. Most of the students I'll be working with are ones I worked with last year -- which means I've had to come up with new material. One thing I know for sure about these students is they love to write, and they write easily... quite a change from many older students I know, for whom writing is stressful and often, not muc [...]

Meet My Mum -- Who Inspired What World Is Left -- and Hear Me Read A Little from the Book

Monique Polak

Check out this link to view a short video made by the Gazette's Phil Carpenter. In it, you'll get to meet my mum, Celien Spier, whose story inspired my new book, What World Is Left. You'll also get to hear me read a little from the book. Let me know what you think of the video! http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/video+what+world+left/1011606/story.html?tab=VID

Good Morning, Morning Pages!

Monique Polak

So classes at Marianopolis are nearly over. Most of my correcting comes in today, and then the rest on Monday. Which means this writer isn't going to be doing much writing over the next few days. But I did start my day with writing -- like I do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Every morning, I write my "morning pages." I got the idea from a terrific book I read several years ago called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. In my morning pages, I do all kinds of things -- sometimes I talk about t [...]

Today's Visit to Beaconsfield High School

Monique Polak

Am just back from a visit to Beaconsfield High School where I spoke to two groups of students about the writing life. I should really be at the grocery store buying ingredients for tonight's supper, but I wanted to sit right down at the computer and jot down some of the fun stuff that happened today during my school visit.

I had lunch in the school cafeteria and some of the grade sevengirls I met before lunch were kind enough to let me join them at their table. In my talk to their c [...]

Special Book Report

Monique Polak

Lately, I've been getting a lot of e-mail from students -- mostly in the U.S. -- who are doing assignments about some of my books. These e-mails are especially satisfying to me, I think, because I am a teacher as well as a writer.

Yesterday, at a family celebration, a couple who are friends of my sister's, told me their daughter Brittany is working on a book report about What WorldIs Left. As far as I know, this is the first assignment a student has done on the new book!! Prett [...]

Ashlee With Two E's

Monique Polak

Every once in a while, I get e-mail from readers I've never met... yesterday I got a message from a girl named Ashlee (she spells it with two e's). Ashlee lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and she wrote to me about my book Scarred. She's reading it for a school project and I told her to get back to me if she had any questions about the book. So, today, Ashlee wrote again, asking how I choosethe subjects I tackle in my books. In my e-mail reply, I told Ashlee I write about things I feel s [...]