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

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 Quebec

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. She

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

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!

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

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 seven

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 World

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 choose

Well, I have exciting news to report -- Booklist, an American Library Association publication, has given What World Is Left a starred review. And if you'll permit me to quote what the reviewer, Hazel Rochman, had to say... she called the book "heartbreaking" and described it as "an important contribution to the Holocaust curriculum." YIPPEE!! Then last night, I learned from