Myra Cohn Livingston Papers

Myra Cohn Livingston was born August 17, 1926 in Omaha, Nebraska. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York, receiving her B.A. in 1948. Livingston first began writing poetry at college, and her work "Whispers" was published in Story Parademagazine in 1946. She published her first book of poetry for children Whispers and Other Poemsin 1959. She continued to publish her own poetry and also became well-known as an anthologist and critic of children's poetry.

In 1961 Livingston helped found the Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People, now known as the Children’s Literature Council of Southern California. In her honor, the council gives the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry. She was the poet-in-residence at Beverly Hills Unified School District from 1966-1984 and taught in the Writers Extension Program at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). She also served as a poetry consultant to various publishers and taught classes in writing poetry for the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English and other organizations.

Her focus was on introducing children to different types of verse such as limericks and haiku, and poetry from all eras and countries. Livingston was awarded the Kerlan Award by the University of Minnesota in 1994. Myra Cohn Livingston died August 23, 1996, in Los Angeles, California.

References:

"Myra Cohn Livingston." The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/livingston-myra-cohn.