Rebecca Gardyn Levington ’86

Children’s book author, poet, and journalist Rebecca Gardyn Levington ’86 lives in the New York metropolitan area with her husband and two sons and is looking forward to the March 2023 release of her second picture book, Whatever Comes Tomorrow. As she anticipates this new milestone in her career, she recently reflected on navigating life, new career opportunities, and a poignant lesson she learned from a Nueva art teacher.

You are an author, poet, and journalist. Tell us how you began your writing career. After graduating from UCLA as a communication studies major with a specialization in business administration, I moved to New York to work in advertising because it sounded like the perfect mix of creativity and business. However, for many reasons, it wasn’t the right fit for me. I’d always loved writing, so I decided to try journalism and enrolled in graduate school at NYU. That led me to internships at New York Newsday, The New York Observer, and AdAge Magazine, and ultimately to a position as a senior editor at American Demographics magazine (a now defunct marketing magazine that was far more interesting than it sounds!).

I had been living in New York when the events of September 11 shook us all to the core. I did some soul-searching and realized I wasn’t happy with my job. I quit and began freelancing, thinking that if I could create my own hours and write about topics that most interested me, I’d be more fulfilled. And I was, for a while. I ended up writing hundreds of articles, from features on non-profit and business leaders for The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Working Mother, to relationship pieces for Bride’s and Ladies Home Journal, among many other publications.

Do you think Nueva and your educational experience here has had a long-term impact on you personally and professionally? I do. At Nueva, I always felt seen. I wasn’t ever “just another student.” I truly felt as if the teachers wanted to get to know me and my interests, to understand what motivated me and what didn’t, and to provide me with challenges and opportunities that would inspire me to thrive. They allowed me the room to experiment, to dabble, to figure out who I was. I think having that support and freedom really helped me as an adult to strive for an authentic life. And while I certainly admit to losing my way at times, I went into adulthood knowing, in my core, who I was and what I was capable of.

My teachers at Nueva were phenomenal. They applauded creativity, nurtured individuality, and allowed me the space to play and discover who I was meant to be. About six years ago, I received an email from someone at Nueva letting me know that they’d uncovered a poem, encased in a plaque, signed by me (see photo, above right). They attached a photo and asked for what occasion the poem had been written. I couldn’t believe it. It was a poem I had written in 1986, when I was 11 years old, as a gift to commemorate my sixth grade graduation from Nueva. I was enrolled from preK all the way through 6th grade, which was—at the time—the highest grade.

I remember being extremely emotional that graduation day, having attended the school for what was essentially my entire life. When I received that email and photo in 2016, I had just begun my journey into writing children’s poetry and picture books, and it almost felt like a sign from the universe—a reminder that the person that Nueva had helped me become was the person I was always meant to be.

What inspired you to transition careers and become a children’s book author? When I gave birth to my first son, I naïvely believed I would continue my freelance journalism career and “just write while the baby sleeps.” But, alas, new motherhood is all-consuming (and exhausting!) and those naps were far too unpredictable. Before I knew it, a decade of full-time mommying had gone by and I hadn’t written a word (other than in my journal, of course!).

I missed writing so much, but didn’t want to go back to journalism. While I liked writing for magazines and newspapers, the deadlines and structure were very constrictive. What I’ve always loved most about writing is playing creatively with words. In 2016, I ended up taking a local writing class called “Where Do I Begin?” The teacher gave us weekly prompts and for some reason I kept coming to class with rhyming poems. Turns out, the teacher was an author of middle grade novels, and she thought some of my poems could be fodder for picture books. She told me about the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and I went to my first kidlit writing conference that summer. I knew immediately that these were my people and this was what I was meant to do.

Do you have a particular focus, area, or theme you like to write about? I find inspiration and ideas everywhere and about all kinds of things! I love wordplay, so many of my ideas come to me in the form of words, phrases, idioms, and puns that can be taken literally. For instance, my debut picture book, Brainstorms!, illustrated by Kate Kronreif, was inspired by a literal rainstorm. I was sitting at my desk, uncertain about what to write, when it started raining outside. I suddenly realized I was brainstorming during a rainstorm and wondered: “What would a brain ‘storm’ look like? What if ideas really did fall from the sky?” A poem began to pour out of me (pun intended) about a girl who imagines a literal storm of ideas, pictures, words, titles, beginnings, middles, endings, etc. all swirling all around her until, in the end, she finds herself inundated by a flood of possibility.

I also get a ton of ideas from things I did or feelings I felt as a child. For instance, my upcoming book, Whatever

Comes Tomorrow, illustrated by Mariona Cabassa, was inspired by my childhood struggles with anxiety—though of course I didn’t know until later that that’s what it was. I just knew that I craved structure and rules and I worried constantly about the unknown. Whatever Comes Tomorrow is essentially a poetic mantra, written to all children (as well as adults like me, who still need to hear it!), a reminder that we have all done or faced hard things in the past and we will continue to do and face hard things in the future. The trick is to remember that strength during the hard times and know that, for better or worse, this too shall pass.

Do you have any core memories from Nueva? It’s been almost 37 years since I graduated from Nueva (how has it been that long?), but I will never forget this moment: I was in art class, maybe in first or second grade, and I felt like I’d messed up my project. I was extremely upset, but the fantastic art teacher at the time (whose name, I’m embarrassed to say, eludes me) said, “Rebecca, always remember: there are no mistakes in art.”

She then showed me how my “mistake” could easily be transformed into something else, something even more beautiful. That lesson has stayed with me all these years. I think about it all the time when I am creating, of course, but also in all kinds of situations. There are no mistakes in life, really. Any “mistake” we make helps us grow into better people. There is always some way to turn our messes into masterpieces—or, if not, we can at least learn from the experience.

What advice do you have for current Nueva students about exploring new areas of interests? Above all else: Be true to who you are! Really think about what you love to do and what you really don’t love to do. What activities make your heart sing? Which ones make you cringe? I absolutely recommend exploring all kinds of things and to push yourself to try things that maybe feel a little out of your comfort zone. But ultimately, it’s important to listen to your heart. Don’t spend too much time doing something that doesn’t feel right to you. When I look back at my career, I realize I knew pretty early on that both advertising and journalism weren’t the exact right fit for me, and in many ways, I was forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yet I stayed in both careers far longer than I should have and wasted many years doing things that didn’t bring me joy. My favorite saying is “Do what you love and love what you do.” Life is way too short to do otherwise.

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