Blog Tour: Interview With Gae Polisner

Posted April 6, 2020 by Amber in Blog Tour, Interviews / 1087 Comments

Hi everyone. I hope we’re all staying safe and healthy during this time. I’m breaking my blogging hiatus with a lovely blog tour interview with Gae Polisner. You can read about the book below and it will be published tomorrow!

1. What struggles did you have when writing Jack Kerouac Is Dead To Me?

What struggles didn’t I have?!

Okay, that may have been overly dramatic. But really, I started the manuscript for JACK a long, long time ago. Some early BETA readers and my agent saw its potential, but, for me, besides some pretty writing and some sensual scenes, I didn’t really get what the point of the story was. Not until I snuck a copy of the manuscript to my awesome editor, Vicki Lame, and said, “tell me whether this has potential, or whether I should put it to bed once and for all.” She fell in love with JL and also helped me to see just where the story needed to go. She unlocked the key to everything I was hoping to “say” by the story. So, it was many years of many many rewrites that brought it to publication.

2. What was your inspiration for Jack Kerouac Is Dead To Me?

Believe it or not, I woke up one morning with the title in my head. Decided to write a whole book around it. Go figure. (That’s the short version, write to me if you want the longer version. ;) )

3. What is your drafting process like? How long does it take for you to complete a novel?

Well, I kind of answered this one up there. But it’s different for every novel. I’ve written a rough first draft in as little as a few weeks (then revised for months) and I’ve written a first rough draft that has taken me years. I try to write most days. But I don’t always. However long it takes me to write a book, it always takes me far longer than that to sell it! That’s for sure. 😀

4. Do you have any fears when writing a new book?

Oh, a million. Why am I writing this? Who will ever want to read this? Who the eff am I to think I can tell this story. And on and on they go. I’ve learned to talk back at that voice in my head. But that doesn’t mean it ever goes away.

5. What have you learned from each book you have published?

That’s a huge, whopping question. . . How about this: each book teaches me more and more that I can. That just when I think I’ll never have another story worth telling, another book in me, I manage to have one. That surprises and amazes me. Every single time.

~About The Book~

Fifteen-year-old JL Markham’s life used to be filled with carnival nights and hot summer days spent giggling with her forever best friend Aubrey about their families and boys. Together, they were unstoppable. But they aren’t the friends they once were.

With JL’s father gone on long term business, and her mother struggling with her mental illness, JL takes solace in the tropical butterflies she raises, and in her new, older boyfriend, Max Gordon. Max may be rough on the outside, but he has the soul of a poet (something Aubrey will never understand). Only, Max is about to graduate, and he’s going to hit the road – with or without JL.

JL can’t bear being left behind again. But what if devoting herself to Max not only means betraying her parents, but permanently losing the love of her best friend? What becomes of loyalty, when no one is loyal to you?

Gae Polisner’s Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a story about the fragility of female friendship, of falling in love and wondering if you are ready for more, and of the glimmers of hope we find by taking stock in ourselves.