Joyce Markovics

Joyce Markovics writes and edits nonfiction books on topics ranging from Tasmanian devils to blizzards for the school and library market. She has published more than a dozen books for young readers, several of which have been recommended by Booklist and the National Science Teachers Association. Her book The Bat’s Cave: A Dark City received the Teachers’ Choice Award for Children’s Books and the Children’s Choices Selection in 2011.

Interview

What was your favorite book when you were a child?

Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum

What’s your favorite line from a book?

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch

Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?

E. B. White, Edward Gorey, and Roald Dahl

Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?

When I realized, at age five, that raising unicorns wasn’t a viable profession.

Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?

Write clearly and expressively.