Katie Slivensky - Science Educator and Acclaimed Author
- litkidsmagazine
- 9 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Katie Slivensky is an enthusiastic science presenter, and the critically acclaimed author of middle grade sci-fi novels, THE COUNTDOWN CONSPIRACY and THE SEISMIC SEVEN, and natural history themed picture books, THIS WOLF WAS DIFFERENT, illustrated by Hannah Salyer, and I, ROCK, illustrated by Steph Stilwell. She is a professional science educator who has worked in zoos and museums since age eleven. Her love of learning has resulted in a lifetime of adventures, including helping separate fighting rhinos, falling down a cliff in search of fossils, flying an astronaut through the solar system (the astronaut was real, the solar system was a simulation), raising a stranded baby mouse, creating million-volt lightning bolts, and handling feisty alligators. She is a firm believer that science and adventure are for everyone, and that kids have a lot to teach adults about how to take care of our world.
1. What inspires you the most? (For context: what is something that you look at that immediately puts your brain into creative mode?)
Learning about a new science fact, or the story of how someone is accomplishing something in science! There’s nothing I love more than learning about the world around us and thinking of ways to share that knowledge with others. I can’t sit through a single nature documentary without spawning at least three new book ideas!
2. Why did you begin writing? Was it because of a person or something else?
I began writing as soon as I could put letters on a page. I was four when I wrote my first written-down story, about a girl who gets a cat as a present and gets to keep it. I wrote my first long-form book in elementary school, however. That was all thanks to my 2nd and 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Martinez, who gave me permission to continue a creative writing assignment that was meant to be one paragraph and which I was meant to turn in after 15 minutes of work. I turned it in to him two years later, at 25 chapters long! This changed my whole world. Mr. Martinez not only gave me the permission to write, he encouraged it. Every new chapter he’d read aloud to my class, for two years. For a shy kid like me, it meant the world to have my peers interested in what I was doing. I became known as the class author, and that helped shape my identity growing up.
3. What is the hardest part of your job?
Finding the time to do it! Grown up life is pretty busy, and it’s hard to find time to concentrate. But you know you have a fun job when you’re always wishing you had more time to do it, so I am pretty lucky in that way.
4. What part of your job do you have the most fun doing?
You’d think it’d be something to do with writing, but actually I have the most fun visiting classrooms! I love visiting schools. I get to bring my stories to classes and read them aloud and chat with kids. Kids are the best, and we have the most delightful and fascinating conversations.
5. What did you like to write and read as a kid?
I loved reading mystery and adventure stories best as a younger kid. When I got older, toward middle school, I got into sci-fi and fantasy more. I especially became obsessed with Star Wars at that age and read pretty much every Star Wars book I could get my hands on, many of them ten to twenty times.
As for writing, I wrote all kinds of things. Always fiction, usually adventurous. My biggest project as a kid was a fantasy novel I wrote in middle school that featured all my friends as characters, but in an alternate world with an epic war going on. That one ended up being over 300 handwritten pages long!
6. How do you get over “writer’s block”?
Whenever I get stuck, I get away from the page. I take a long walk, a long drive, or a long shower. Somewhere where it’d be very hard for me to write anything down. The farther away from writing utensils, the more my brain is forced to switch gears, and the problem in my manuscript gets shuttled to the “backburners” of my brain. My subconscious takes it from there and almost always solves it for me. Usually somewhere along the way, I get an ah-hah moment that gets everything firing again, and the creativity pours out like a waterfall.
Then it’s a rush to get BACK to a writing utensil to write the solution down!
7. What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
Two pieces of advice, actually: first, read a lot. And read a variety! Let your brain soak up all kinds of styles and words and learn what is out there. Though, it’s also okay to dig in and read your favorite genre on repeat if you’d like. I mean, again, I read nearly nothing but Star Wars books for about four years running as a kid! But I did progress most as a writer when I expanded the types of books I read.
Second, never give up. The only way you don’t get a book written is if you give up writing. Even if it’s hard, as long as you keep trying, you will do it. Just take it one sentence at a time.
8. Do you ever stop writing and start something different?
All the time! I know above I just said don’t give up, but that’s meant to be more broad. Like, don’t give up writing in general. But it’s okay to stop on a particular project! I have many incomplete manuscripts. Things that sounded good at first, but when I got into them, I realized they weren’t what I’d hoped they’d be. Part of being a writer is figuring out which ideas are truly the gems and which ones are just okay. That said, if you find yourself never finishing any project, that’s a different situation. If you only ever start projects and never finish them, then you’ll never have a finished project! So if that’s the case for you, my challenge for you would be to see a writing project through. Pick your favorite and just work on it until it’s done. Finishing a manuscript is a more difficult skill to master than starting one, by far. The more you practice finishing a manuscript, the better a writer you will become.
9. Do you only write for one genre?
Nope! I have a lot of interests as a person, and that’s reflected in my writing. I write for different age ranges, styles, fiction/nonfiction, genres… Some folks like to specialize in just one area, but I like too many things to do that!
10. Do you let people read your work before it is finished?
Absolutely! I have a team of critique partners. Fellow writers who read my work as I’m writing it and give me feedback. I do the same for them! This helps me improve my writing. It’s not always easy to hear feedback, but it is another great skill to practice. In time, I’ve learned to love feedback and editorial suggestions. Listening to the suggestions of others helps me see what needs fixing in my manuscripts. Maybe their exact idea for how to fix it doesn’t resonate with me, but it will inform me that something needs fixing! Then I can take that long walk, drive, or shower, and think up a solution.
Thanks so much for having me! Go, kid writers, go!
Wow, Katie, your interview is full of golden advice for budding writers. Thank you for taking the time to support Lit Kids! Please follow Katie on social media and check out her fun picture book, I, ROCK, in our Bookshop. Keep shining!
Website: https://www.katieslivensky.com