Q: When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

A: When I was in junior high I wanted to be a writer and I wrote a lot. I left a collection of my poetry under my desk one night and a teacher found it and called me to tell me now marvelous she thought my writing was. I was so mortified that someone had read my work, I burned all my writing and wrote only work-related curriculum and programs for the next 30 years. The trials of marriage and motherhood and the stories about my children spurred me into a writing group for mothers and years of stories spilled out.

Q: How and when did you make this dream a reality?

A: A number of my stories were published in an anthology.

Q: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far in your writing career?

A: The lesson I have learned is to keep remembering that I am writing for myself. It is my art, my creative gift and therapy and a validation of my life. The interest and reaction of others is only secondary.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: A novel about life today - the demise of a family through the actions of an alcoholic parent.

Q: Name some authors or books that have influenced your writing life in a positive way.

A: I love collections of short stories full of heart and humor like Barbara Kingsolver’s Small Wonder and Shermie Alexie’s Ten Little Indians.

Q: What have you recently read or what are you reading right now that you would consider an outstanding work?

A: I actually read a lot of nonfiction and consider Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and Jared Diamond’s Collapse outstanding. I picked up a copy of The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson and just loved it.

Q: What excites or ignites your soul?

A: I am an outdoors person and nature does it for me: bird songs in the morning, a run through a leaf-strewn forest, the full moon, bright-headed flowers waving in the wind, cool breezes on my skin.

Linda Levitt is a veteran of 30 years of classroom teaching, specializing in Special Education, Gifted Education and Curriculum Development. She is the author of Managing the Disruptive Child in the Classroom, What To Do When Your Kids Are Smarter Than You and co-author of LifeLines, a collection of stories about motherhood. She is a speaker, author and advocate for Exceptional Children, an avid environmentalist, runner, recovering triathlete, Master Gardener, and mother of two sons, two stepdaughters and two dogs in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Visit Linda at www.LifeLinesWeb.com or at www.EducatingExlearners.com.

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