Gae Polisner's Blog, page 25

Obsessed!

My blog post is here today.

I think it's worth reading.

- gae

Open Water (Birthday) Blues

It's my birthday. *stares at it*

At this age, I'm not sure what to do with birthdays anymore. I want to believe they're just an artificial marker and that I'm no older today than I was yesterday.

Then my hip or knee or back (or dear friends ;)) will remind me that I am. Older than I was before.

Age is such a weird thing. I often feel old, sometimes I feel so young, and sometimes I feel totally ageless. In the water, I always feel ageless.

What I do know is time passes too fast. . .

Way, way, way too fast.

At any rate, it's my birthday. Like it or not. So, I'm trying to give it the respect it deserves. So far, I took my kids to a midnight show of Captain America. We ate
Holden and me in 3D :)candy and donned 3D glasses. It ended at 2:20 am. I was exhausted. But, we were a family doing a family thing which is really as good as it gets.    

In a few hours, I have a mediation (my "paid" work) then after that, I'm meeting up with some friends from my "Pod" and going for an open water swim. Those of you who know me, know how I feel about this: my family, the love of my friends, and the open water are all I need. They save me on a daily basis. And, the blue water, for me, is nothing short of bliss.

At any rate, if you want to give me a birthday present, I'd really love and appreciate it if you'd order a copy of my book, The Pull of Gravity, or take it out from your local library, or recommend it to a friend. If you've read it and liked it, please post a review on Amazon because it actually boosts sales and, in this book economy, we could all use a bit of that.

It's been a crazy year with many ups and a few downs, but all in all, 46 has been good to me. And, it wouldn't be the same without you.
xo,

Gae

Sugar Lips & Zombies

what? Dot sprinkles aren't sexy? Yes, I dunked my lips in colored sprinkles.

It's for a good cause.

We're celebrating the release of Carrie Harris' BAD TASTE IN BOYS! Not only is Carrie's book out today, but she's hosting an auction for a great cause. Please click on that link to check it out and bid. (Yes, there's a copy of TPoG in there :)).

Anyway, in honor of her book birthday, some of us have zombied ourselves, and some of us opted for sugar lips. And we're all gathering over here, at Cari's Book Blogs to show our love.

So, go there and click on the zombify link or slather on some lip gloss and sprinkles and add your pucker to the list. Then go over to Carrie's auction and bid on some stuff. And don't forget to check out her book.

xo Gae

Dude.

or, you know, Dudette,

Please join me this coming Wednesday evening, July 6 at 6:00 pm, when I, and my little book, The Pull of Gravity, will join a mind-bogglingly cool and talented crew of  YA authors for a Teen Author Reading Night at the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library (corner of 6th Ave. and 10th St.). The evening is hosted by the amazing and generous David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary; Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist; Will Grayson, Will Grayson; etc.).
Check him out here on his facebook author page or his website.

If you are in the city, please stop by.

If you are not, please spread the word and send others.

Either way, I will try to live up to the phenomenal company I will be in:

JULY 6
Tara Altebrando, Dreamland Social Club
Matt Blackstone, A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie
Christopher Grant, Teenie
Alissa Grosso, Popular
Sarah Darer Littman, Want to Go Private?
Melissa Walker, Small Town Sinners
Nova Ren Suma, Imaginary Girls; and, (*gulp*) me,
Gae Polisner , The Pull of Gravity.

Hope to see you there.

- gae

My Life, in Avoidance . . .(a blog post in which I say nothing of importance)

(don't say I didn't give you a heads up).

So, then. Avoidance of what, you might ask?

Of vacuuming, mostly.

[image error] Like a coiled snake, ready to strike. Or something.
Sue me. I don't like to vacuum. Or clean. I mean, who really does?

The way I recall it (which is probably all wrong), I spent most of my childhood being asked to clean and avoiding it. I became quite a pro at that second part. If you don't believe me, ask my sister about the maid game. She'll tell you what I mean.

At any rate.

Perhaps it's because I grew up in a modern house covered with dog hair and dogs (well, thank god for the latter part, or the dog hair part would have been alarming). These were not any dogs, mind you, but big, drooling, great danes with paws the size of New Jersey and strings of drool dangling in strands, just ready to fly out from their jowels in slo-mo as they ran the tiled floors of my childhood hell.

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, my parents' house and their dogs and the dog hair. And the drool (and, fyi, they're still there, btw. The danes. New ones, of course, like the fifth incarnation, because they're danes and danes have notoriously short lives, but I digress).

Now, add to all this: mirrors. Lots and lots of mirrors. If anyone loved mirrors it was my parents. Trust me on this one. It was not a vanity thing, but a "modern look" thing -- plus how they believed that mirrors gave the "illusion" of larger rooms and reflected the light streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Ah, I almost forgot, add to the mix floor-to-ceiling windows, and put the dog drool back in the mix. And don't forget the pounds and pounds of dog hair. Now  you're starting to get the picture.

So, you can see why I feel like I spent my childhood with a vacuum in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other (fyi, this is probably completely false. My parents can probably count on one hand the amount of times I vacuumed and.or did mirrors and windows in my blessed childhood, but if that's the case it's only because I balked the other 365 days x 18 years I was asked. And boy could I balk.

At any rate.

Now I am all grown up. My house is free of dogs and mirrors, but there are boys and birds. Did I mention boys? I mean, don't be fooled. Either one of those things could give you a run for your vacuuming money.

So, what was my point?

Oh yeah. Avoidance.

So, now that my book is out, I need to market it. I need to be my own publicity machine. Because of blogging and the internet, this is something I could be doing somewhat productively 24/7 if I wanted to. But then, who would want to?

Not me.

*glances around at birds and evidence of boys and taunting, snake-like vacuum curled and ready to strike*

Because, here's the thing, I think I've suddenly realized. I'm not a slacker, really. So, if I stop marketing (and since I'm in between manuscripts), unless I have a mediation, I'm no longer "working." And if I'm no longer working, I have to do my other designated job as housekeeper, and get up off my ass and vacuum. And I don't see my sister running here in her effective french maid outfit.

Besides, why should I vacuum, when the cleaning woman comes in another five or six days?

*Sighs. Stares at screen and types "library summer reading programs" into search bar, and keeps ass firmly planted.*

Pick a Card, any Card. . .

Okay, fine. No cards. I need you to pick a read-aloud.

You've got fifteen whole minutes to spare, right?

Fine, whatever. Do what you can. ;)

The read aloud I usually do is last. I tried out a new one at the suggestion of my assistant editor, and then also tried a third. Obviously, I'm most practiced at the third and it shows. So, assume some brushing up goes into choices 1 and 2.

Which one intrigues you most? Or bores you least. Or, you know, raise your hand if you couldn't care less. And I'll just keep on reading Chapter 2.

If you do chime in, thanks!

- gae

Choice number 1.



Choice 2. 



or, choice 3.

hmmm. It wont let me upload choice 3, the same way I uploaded the first two. Have I exceeded some limit? At any rate, it allowed me to do it as a photo, that you can now play. At least I can in preview mode. Of course, it's doubled them up. They're both the same. Only play the top one. Or the bottom one. Or neither. You're a big person. You choose. *shrugs*







Making A Summer Splash!

The cover of the Fanfare
Section of Sunday's NewsdaySo, I was sitting at my son's double header on Sunday, when a friend walked up to me and said, "Hey, saw your book in Newsday today."

Since Newsday was kind enough to do a profile on me several weeks ago in the book section, I assumed she was just offering some slightly stale news.

Then my cell phone rang, and it was my mother.

"Have you SEEN Newsday?!" she exclaimed.

Really. She exclaimed it. The SEEN was capitalized in her voice and there was definitely a question mark plus an exclamation in her intonation. Maybe even two.


And, no. I hadn't seen it. I certainly hadn't SEEN it. But I was excited and so my sweet hubby ran out to a nearby gas station and grabbed a copy of the paper. And there in the Fanfare section, as part of a two-page spread, right next to a new John Grisham title, under the heading Summer Reads for Kids was my little book, The Pull of Gravity.

The full spread.See what I mean?!?!

Wait, if you can't see it well enough, let me show you again:

Now, you can see it, right? :)Just so you don't hurt your eyes squinting, here's what it says:

"FOR BOYS, AGES 12 AND UP, who may have outgrown action-adventure (and it's barely 200 pages long?)


What summer reading list is complete without a road-trip novel? Especially one that extols the virtues of reading sad books and contains the sentence: "Parents are such idiots." Nick, hero of "The Pull of Gravity" by first-time Greenlawn author Gae Polisner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99) is a 100 percent inarticulate 14-year-old boy, madly exercising his talent for avoiding everything embarrassing or unpleasant. His pal Scooter -- though dying from a rare disease -- is looking out for him with the accumulated wisdom of his close study of Yoda, sage of the "Star Wars" saga."

I mean, that is some pretty good stuff right there. I almost fell off of the bleachers!

And yes, some emails are already coming in.

So, thanks, I needed that! I HEART you, Newsday!!!! You hear me? I HEART you, capitalized HEART with plenty of exclamations at the end. Even though you keep posting articles about SHARKS and other big things in the water here.

:)

xo gae

I HEART INDIES!!!!

hmmm, this is an innie, not an indie, isn't it?
Okay, fine, that's an Innie not an Indie, but isn't it a great photo?

At any rate. . . Today on Twitter, at the terrific suggestion of Lisa and Laura Roecker of the Liar Society, a campaign's been started called #iheartindies in order to honor the awesomesauceness that are Independent Bookstores.

And, for those of us with books like mine (no fangs, no wings -- thanks Bett for that one!), we need indies and libraries more than you know!

So, I'm thrilled to have participated this morning, giving a shout out to a few of my personal faves.

If you want to see the post, it's on my contemporay fiction blog, Trying to Stay Afloat in a Sea of Words HERE today because that blog has been neglected as of late. For any of you YA's reading here, sometimes (but rarely) that blog gets a little racy or someone drops the f-bomb. Also, there's another bad pun there, so be warned. ;)

xo gae

Class of 2K11 in New York City: Tattoos, Tater Tots and the Stuff that Legends are Made of.


Because nothing says "let's get frisked" like a Crown Victoria
The shoes and the henna
make the girl...It was a frisky week (fine, forgive me, I groaned for you, but it went with the photo over there <-----) as the Class of 2K11 hit the streets (bookstores, libraries, and, yes, funky hotspots) of NYC armed with our books, our nerves and our senses of humor (and, okay, some of us, ahem, with a constant change of shoes).  

I started my whirlwind 2 1/2 days in NYC with a late-night pitstop for drink(s) with the infamous (and fantastic) David Macinnis Gill, author of Soul Enchilada and Black Hole Sun who I tweet with on a regular basis but had not yet had the pleasure of meeting in person. In a short visit, we wandered aimlessly up and down escalators (both of us) with my luggage (David, insisting) and got ourselves booted out of a ritzy nightclub for not being well-dressed (if you guessed David, you're wrong -- that one was me, I did offer to do a quick change in the bathroom, but David preferred to continue to wander aimlessly until we lucked into a spot that would have us).

A brief night's sleep, and I was off to meet my fellow Classmates for our first group appearance in the city at the Seward Park Library. There I "moderated" the panel where we did brief readings from our books and were peppered with brilliant questions from our audience: a class of scarily-smart seventh graders from the Spence School in NYC. 

Geoff Herbach and Carole Estby Dagg arriving
at the beautiful park where the library is...
Herbach with the tools of the trade
in hand: coffee, cell phone, backpack with book.
Amy Dominy, Angie Smibert and Kiki Hamilton
(more fabulous shoes. See? I was not alone).

A crazy-decadent lunch was had (can you say coconut fried chicken sandwich with chipotle mayo? omg, yes I did!) and we were off to our next event at the Grand Central branch of the NYPL. Talk about a teen friendly place! There we did a sort of roundtable (sans table) chat with the teen librarian, Anna, and a few rapt listeners (sorry, no photos!) and we were off to event number three at the esteemed Books of Wonder, NYC, where we were joined by some more Class of 2K11'ers and greeted by a fabulous display of our books: 


Amy Fellner Dominy (OyMG)
in front of the great BOW display

Sheila O'Connor (Sparrow Road)
BOW display Hmmm, aren't they sweet bookends?

(yes, yes, I know two "right" bookends. Sue me).




Some terrific and hard-working YA bloggers who showed up at our BOW event!
we were thrilled and grateful. <3

Out to dinner with my sister and home for some sleep before Day 2 kicked in.

Day Two: First to Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street, where the totally hilarious Sam Osterhout and deliriously delightful Robin Reed of Radio Happy Hour entertained us with "dramatic performances" of excerpts from our books, sometimes joined on stage by the talented Geoff Herbach (Stupid Fast), a/k/a Nacho Dip, playing both male and female roles. If my assistant editor's cell phone suffices as a video recording device in a loud, dark, red room, you might be lucky enough to see The Pull of Gravity performance later this week! ;)

All this, mind you, while we feasted on pizzitas, taquitos, edamame and tater tots served with three different dipping sauces (someone else has those photos, maybe they will follow?!).

Class of 2K11 with Sam Osterhout and Robin Reed of
Radio Happy Hour.
Photo credit, Rick Kopstein


Me, hamming it up
 after a tater tot-Lucky Charms fueled rush
Photo credit: Rick Kopstein Each mini performance was followed by a rapid-fire style interview of the authors that mostly (refreshingly) had nothing to do with our books. I was "lucky" to get a Lucky Charms question -- a subject on which I am a self-proclaimed expert.

*Much to my better judgment, if it exists, video may follow on this topic as well* 


Finally, we were off to Larchmont, NY via Metro North railroad where the best part was almost, but not, meeting the wonderful Francine and Rose of The Voracious Reader Bookstore who stuffed us with pizza and had multiple displays of the Class of 2K11 books gracing her magnificent bookstore (I can't find my photos, but maybe other Class members will share...). Our henna artist was there, and, so, in a moment of lull, I presented my back and neck and I believe I am now covered in ocean waves. Photos were taken of that too, so hopefully those will surface.

Suffice it to say, it was a parade of an appearance, and we were all exhausted by the time it was over.

So exhausted that one of us (names shall not be mentioned...ahem...) forgot her cell phone at the desk of The Voracious Reader, a fact not realized until 3 blocks and several flights of stairs later, as we arrived on the Metro North platform back to the city with only a few moments to spare.

Which is when the real magic of the week happened, and we learned that Geoff Herbach is not only a mess, but he really is as STUPID FAST as his main character!

I'd show you photos, but he was too fast to snap them, so you'll have to believe in the legend.

That's it for now. Hopefully some more fun stuff to follow. <3

Love to all,

- gae

Class of 2K11 Storms NYC for BEA Week! Be There!

Hey, all,

My BEA-week events start tomorrow!
I join members of the Class of 2K11 tomorrow, Wednesday May 25,  for two NY Public Library-connected events in the morning and afternoon, and an evening event (with cupcakes and henna artist) at the landmark Books of Wonder -- all free! 
Then on Thursday, a special blogger appreciation day at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC, where there will be food and drink and a comedic reading from our books, and and on-the-spot Q&A. We're not sure what to expect, but it should be fun!
That will be followed with a group event at Voracious Reader in Larchmont, NY.
Details abound here: https://www.facebook.com/gaepolisnerauthor#!/event.php?eid=200237000019309
Hope you will join me!