Cynthia Levinson

Cynthia Levinson is the author of We Have a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March (Peachtree, 2012). She has been published in all of the premier children’s magazines, including: Cobblestone, Faces, Appleseeds, Odyssey, Calliope, and Highlights for Children. She has a journalist’s passion for getting things right—if she testifies about something in open court, you can believe it is 100% the truth! 

The Sixty Second Interview with… Cynthia Levinson

1. How do you take your coffee? Effetely. I like as much flavoring, sweetening, and calcium-fortifying as one cup of coffee (and my budget and waistline) can afford.
2. What’s the best piece of publishing advice you’ve ever received? What I’ve gleaned is: first of all, TARGET (people, not the store). Editors are people with preferences and tastes. Find the ones that match your work. And secondly, THINK MARKETING. Forget what I just said about editors having tastes. They do. But, figure out the niche for your manuscript, too, because it’s really the Marketing people who make the decisions.
3. Did you make up a bunch of lies as a kid? I was especially convinced about the existence of my imaginary mouse friends.
4. Of all the metaphors by which writing has been portrayed, which is your favorite? Laying tracks—like layering sound tracks in a musical studio.
5. What kinds of advice do your friends ask you for? How did you convince your children to have children? (Make them think it’s their idea!)
6. Do you have any writing tics or blind spots that you had to conquer the hard way? I had to stop believing myself when I thought something I wrote was good and, instead, listen to what other people, who actually know what they’re talking about, were trying to tell me.
7. What’s next for you? Circus!

Our (current) favorite sentences of Cynthia’s: “Why did Audrey, Carolyn, and Rickey cut school to take a walk? And why were police so threatened by this that they attacked and threw the 4,000 kids who joined them into jail?”