Gae Polisner, Author with the Box of Wax Lips

(Written for my journalism class, with endless thanks to the fabulous authoress herself.)

“I get an image, or an interesting fact, and suddenly it’s a whole book,” Polisner says, “And I think, what is this that I’m writing?”  

The storylines that plague Polisner into writing them have staked out a place for her in classrooms and bookstores right beside classics like Steinbeck, whose “Of Mice and Men” features in Polisner’s debut novel, “The Pull of Gravity”.  

People choose to become authors for a variety of reasons, such as a love of literature, a desire for fame, or to emulate novels that have held deep meaning for them as readers.  For Polisner it’s about doing what she loves:  finding simple themes or ideas or even single scenes that interest her, and trying to paint a picture to share those unshakeable feelings with her audience.  While she doesn’t know what the future holds for her books or herself as an author, Polisner knows that she’s not going to stop writing.

Polisner lives on the North Shore of Long Island with her husband David, and two sons Sam, 17, and Holden, 15.  She attended Boston University and Brooklyn Law School.  She spends her days wearing many “hats” as a legal mediator, a mother, a wife, and of course with her writing; when she isn’t working on a manuscript directly she builds social networks on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.  It may not be exactly what she expected being an author to be like, but for Polisner wearing the many hats that being an author requires lets her keep writing.  That, for Polisner, is “just this wish fulfilment.”  

Like many authors, Polisner talks about writing from the time she was small.  She never really imagined that she would become a professional author, so she set aside writing creatively when she entered into law school and focused on technical work.  Polisner still loves her job as a mediator and practices it in between the many manuscripts she’s revising and marketing.  So why did she decide to pursue a career as an author?  

“One day,” Polisner says with a laugh, “I sat down and decided I would write a hundred pages, just to see what it felt like. But after a hundred pages I couldn’t stop.”

Her self-effacing humor is amplified when she talks about stumbling into a career.  “[Friends and family] read it, and they liked it, so I kept working on it.  Honestly, I don’t know how that all happened,” Polisner says.

Polisner finished her first manuscript and entered it into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition in 2007, the first year the contest was held.  That experience led her into a conversation with agents and publishers which carved the path to her writing career, even though that particular book has yet to be published.  

Her own experiences with publishing affect the advice she gives to writers just starting out.  Polisner says, “you have to find your inspiration, whatever keeps you going, and you have to have some luck.”  

By luck she means that no matter how great your work is, writing is still as subjective as an art.  Each manuscript is a little masterpiece, and just like a painting everyone will interpret it differently and have a different idea of where it belongs.  Authors depend on getting their manuscripts in front of the pair of eyes that believes in the potential there and wants to fight to have it published.  

“That part is the luck part,” Polisner says, “that part you can’t control.”  

For Polisner, the drive to keep going even when she received rejection was her children.  

“Having my sons really changed it for me,” Polisner explains, saying that she chose to live by the maxim that it doesn’t matter how many times you fall down, what matters is if you get back up.  She didn’t want her sons to give up when people said no to their dreams, so she just kept going.  It was ten years from the time she first decided to give writing a shot before her first book was published, but she doesn’t regret any of the journey.

Polisner’s original passion was women’s fiction; the first time she sat down to write a novel, that’s what she wrote. That was what won her recognition in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and secured her first agent.  For some reason, a publishing deal never came together.  She wrote another women’s fiction novel that received a lot of positive feedback from readers and agents, but still not a book deal.  

“The young adult literature was a surprise,” Gae says with a touch of nostalgia, “because women’s fiction was my first love.”  It seems as if most of her journey surprised her.  The idea to have Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” take center stage in “The Pull of Gravity” was also unexpected, something that simply occurred to her one day, redefining the novel as well as giving Polisner new and unexpected avenues for marketing her work.  

One of the ways “The Pull of Gravity” has reached the most readers is through being used as a “bridge” or “companion” novel, being paired in the classroom with Steinbeck.  It is used as a stepping stone to getting readers interested in classic literature and standard literary fiction.  Bridge novels are a new trend in teaching that have even come to Yakima, where Yakima Valley Community College has even seen the technique used in an English 101 class taught by Dan Peters.  

That class paired “The Hunger Games” with “Fahrenheit 451”, and many students responded enthusiastically. Dodie Forrest, director of the Writing Center and chair of the English Department, states that while using Young Adult Fiction as a bridge is useful, she wouldn’t suggest that every professor try it.  Part of helping students reach the level of literacy they need at a college level is recognizing what they already bring to the table.

“While I want [students] to appreciate literature,” Forrest says, “I also want to appreciate their literacy.”  But Forrest is quick to add that she’s excited any time she sees a student reading, be it YA Fiction, a graphic novel, or classic literature.  If a student loves any words on a page, that creates a foundation to build on for a more critical response later down the road.  So books like Polisner’s “The Pull Of Gravity” can have a place on college campuses, like the copy that is available to borrow from YVCC’s own Writing Center.

Sarah Andersen, age 28, an English teacher at Clio High School in Clio, Michigan, was the first teacher to use Polisner’s book in her class.  Andersen’s school was looking to replace “The Odyssey” with another story about a journey, and “Of Mice and Men” seemed like a natural fit.  “Once we made that decision, I recommended that we pair it with The Pull of Gravity,” Andersen says, because both of the books are about friendship and the timeless adventure towards self awareness.

Andersen was glad to find that Polisner was enthusiastic and eager to help.  Making a guide that other teachers would be using, and possibly judging, was a nerve wracking process.  The emails exchanged back and forth smoothed the process and helped Andersen feel confident in her work.  Andersen says that Polisner “deserves tons of kudos for how accessible she is as an author.”

On top of contributing to the teacher’s guide, Polisner also chats with classrooms reading her book over Skype, interacts with youth on her Facebook page, tweets, and responds to book reviews on Goodreads.  

Polisner says she’s still trying to figure out unique ways to market her next novel.  Perhaps there will be another tie in for teachers to use to connect with their students, or more gimmicks like the wax lips and troll dolls she’s been bringing to readings for “The Pull of Gravity”.  Polisner says that it can be a real challenge to come up with anything new to do.  Still, she’s fortunate in the way that YA authors band together and support each other.

Polisner has done group readings with other authors, even 90 second “flash” readings aimed towards younger audiences that might not be interested in longer, traditional fare. If someone isn’t interested after the first ninety seconds, Polisner says, all you do by reading a whole chapter is lose them more.  

Shorter readings, gimmicks, and fun, those are all things that YA authors turn to in order to keep things fresh and relevant to their primary audience.  But ultimately it’s not about the gimmicks or the constant push to come up with something new and interesting.  

As Forrest is quick to point out, when someone reads they’re really just looking for that connection; they’re seeking a theme or character that speaks to their own experiences, and helps them understand and respond.  That’s what Polisner demands from her own writing:  something that forges a connection.  She waits for that idea, that scene, that character that suddenly demands a whole book be written around them.  

Polisner says there’s no way to really know where that will take her in the future.  She has to negotiate the tension between what will keep her career going and what will feed her creative drive.  “I want to do I what I want to do,” Polisner says, her voice losing a touch of it’s characteristic edge, “but there’s a balance to that.”