Monique Polak

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About Monique

HOW DID MONIQUE GET INTO WRITING?

Monique knew from a young age that she wanted to do something creative. She would have liked to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and become a painter, so for her tenth birthday, she asked for an easel and a book about painting. She got the easel and the book, but discovered she was not very good at painting – so she decided to become a writer instead, because she’d always loved inventing stories.

Monique adores stories – this includes not only stories inside books, but also stories people tell. When Monique enrolled as an undergraduate student at McGill University in Montreal, it seemed natural for her to study English Literature. She did her Master’s degree at Concordia University, where she wrote her thesis about Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

Monique visits school on Vancouver Island

But studying the great authors left Monique feeling a little overwhelmed. Though she never stopped writing diary entries and letters to friends and relatives, it would be more than 10 years before she began writing professionally.

Monique’s writing career began with journalism. She sold her first piece – a book review – to the Montreal Gazette in 1991. Since then, she has written for almost every section of the newspaper, including city news, entertainment and lifestyle, travel and even business.

But what Monique really dreamt of doing was writing a novel for young adults. But breaking into the children’s writing market was far harder than she expected. She wrote and rewrote several manuscripts before she made her first sale to Orca Book Publishers. At about the same time, Monique got a phone call from Hadley Dyer, who was, at the time, children’s book editor at James Lorimer and Co. Hadley had read one of Monique’s manuscripts. “It doesn’t suit our needs, but we want to know whether you’ll write a book for us.” Of course, Monique said yes. And so, she went from having no publishers to having two of them!

Monique brings her teaching and journalism experience to her novels. Several of her stories take place in schools, and Monique gets many story ideas from her students. For example, the book Scarred, which is about a young woman who cuts herself, was based on the many stories students have told Monique about their problems with self-mutilation. Monique also researched self-mutilation for a feature story she wrote for The Montreal Gazette.

Two of Monique’s other books, On the Game and All In, grew out of well-publicized newspaper stories. On the Game, which deals with teenage prostitution, was inspired by a shocking case in Quebec City in which girls from seemingly ordinary families were recruited as prostitutes. All In, which looks at the problem of teen gambling, was inspired by events at a private high school in Montreal.

WANT TO KNOW A LITTLE MORE ABOUT WHERE MONIQUE GETS HER IDEAS?

Monique is always on the lookout for stories. And she believes that when you’re on the lookout for stories, you’ll find lots of them!

As a freelance journalist, Monique is always hunting for stories. For instance, right now, she is working on a story for the Montreal Gazette about water bottles. Is it dangerous to reuse single serving water bottles? (The answer, she’s discovered is no, as long as you wash your water bottles out carefully with soap and warm water before reusing them.) Now, this isn’t the kind of subject Monique is likely to turn into a book. But there are other stories that will find their way into Monique’s novels.

For instance, several years ago, Monique was researching a newspaper story about Montreal pet stores. At one of the stores she visited, Monique, who’s a bird lover, met a beautiful cockatoo named Elmo. He inspired her book Finding Elmo, which happens to be set in… you guessed it… a Montreal pet store.

Monique also gets ideas for characters from real life. For instance, a friend told Monique about a man who has an obsession with making lists – and so she gave this quirky trait to the mom in Finding Elmo.

HOW DOES MONIQUE GO ABOUT WRITING A BOOK?

Sometimes, Monique uses an outline. Other times, she just goes for it, letting the story tell itself. Monique believes there are advantages to either approach. Having an outline reduces some of the stress associated with coming up with a workable plot. Writing without an outline tends to be a little more exciting.

When Monique is working on a new book, she tries to write five days a week. She sets herself a “quota” – the number of words she needs to write each day, usually it’s between 500 and 1,000 depending on the length of her project and her deadline – and then she stays at her computer until it’s done.

Of course, the re-writing takes as much time, and often more time, than the first draft!

WHAT’S MONIQUE UP TO NOW?

Monique is hard at work on several new projects. One, tentatively called Lotje’s Story and scheduled for publication with Orca in the fall of 2008, is about Monique’s mother’s childhood experience in Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp. Until Monique began doing the research for this book, her mother had never openly discussed what life for her was like inside the camp. Last year, Monique received a grant from the Quebec Conseil des Arts to travel to her mother’s childhood home in Holland, and then to Theresienstadt, in Czechoslovakia, in order to do further research for that book. Monique made the journey in April and May 2007.

Monique also has another book – this one tentatively entitled 121 Express – scheduled for publication with Orca this spring. Almost the entire story is set on a school bus. Monique got the idea for this book last winter, when she was working with students at Lauren Hill Academy in Montreal as part of a project sponsored by Blue Metropolis’ s Quebec Roots educational program . Monique met with Lauren Hill students and talked to them about writing. Together with Montreal photographer Monique Dykstra, she also helped students put together a book about their experiences on the 121 Express, a City of Montreal bus reserved for Lauren Hill students. The students’ stories of what happened on the bus were so funny and outrageous that Monique knew she had material for another book. As part of her research, she rode the bus one day after school – and her ears rang for several hours afterwards!

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