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From American Idol to
Children's Book Author
By Hillary Hart
People often wonder how some manage to follow and achieve their dreams, while others give up. For author Christina Christian Cewe, it all begins with one's simple belief in their own ability.
You may recognize Christina from her time on American Idol. From her appearance on the show, she went on to be signed to 19 Entertainment label, touring the world while performing and writing her own music.
She believes that if you build up the belief in kids while they're young, you can instill in them the self-confidence to follow their dreams, no matter the obstacles.
Inspired by her own children, she began writing her first children's book, "I Believe in Me, Do You Believe in You?" while watching her first child begin to explore the world around him.
This book of fun affirmations can inspire people of all ages to believe in themselves and to follow their dreams while planning out their inspired action steps.
In Entertainment had the opportunity to connect with Christina about her new book and what she's been up to since her time on American Idol.
Congratulations on writing your first children's book, titled “I Believe in Me, Do You Believe in You?” What was your inspiration for this story?
My children. I actually started writing it 14 years ago when my eldest son, who's now a junior in high school, was 2 1/2. He was blossoming and wanting to try different things, and he was struggling with building confidence. I wanted to figure out a way to build up a narrative in his head.
Since I had my experience in writing music, writing poetry was very in sync with that and that's what helped me come up with that - something he could memorize and help him build that belief in himself.
How would you describe this book?
I would say it's a book of affirmations—created to help children build a narrative of belief in themselves. So many kids imagine things like touching the sky or taking a rocket to the moon, at least my kids did.
So I took those fun adventurous ideas that kids might imagine themselves doing to help them jump right into this story, and begin the adventure of believing in their abilities to do the incredible ideas that their young creative minds can dream up.
You started writing music before writing your first children's book. Can you tell us a little about your songwriting, and about your time on American Idol?
The first season of American Idol I think was in 2002. I wasn't pursuing music at that time - I was a student at University of Florida in finance and sociology, which is very different, and I'd written poetry but I'd never written music.
After the show, four of us were signed to 19 Entertainment. It was there that I discovered I could write music. I was traveling the world, meeting different producers and songwriters, and I had to learn to write my album.
How do you feel being on American Idol impacted your life?
It changed so much of my life. It was difficult - I was sick during the show, and I didn't know what was going on. Being a performer and not being able to sing the songs you were used to performing - you were kind of forced to stick within a genre - that part was difficult.
After the show, I was signed to 19 Entertainment and Simon Fuller, which provided me the opportunity to travel the world and work with incredible songwriters and producers, it was truly just an awesome experience.
I look back at it - kids will do summers abroad in college, and those were my semesters abroad, living and working in Sweden and London, being able to perform and shoot a music video in South Africa and go to music festivals in Kenya.
Those were just incredible opportunities that I would have never had if I didn't jump out there and audition for that show.
How did you find out about the auditions for American Idol?
My husband, who was my fiancé at the time in school, saw a commercial. We were heading down to South Florida for Mother's Day, and he said, "There's an audition there. You need to go." And we just did it.
It was a whim, just believing it could be done. A lot of it comes down to my parents. Both of my parents have always said, "Nothing can stop you but you. You have to believe that you can do whatever you want to do." So I was like, "Let's do this! I'm going to get to Hollywood."
You mentioned you weren't feeling well at the time when you were on the show? What was going on?
I unfortunately didn't know at the time, I have a condition called Sjogren's syndrome, which is an autoimmune disorder that affects all of your fluid-producing glands, so I had lost my voice,
I had lost a bunch of weight, I was severely dehydrated, but we didn't understand why. We were like, "Oh, we're in California, and it's dry."
Granted, we weren't eating properly during the show, McDonald's or an In-N-Out burger was our food. We weren't sleeping right, and my immune system just wasn't as strong. And I lost my voice. I remember being on the show and getting the cortisone shot and that didn't work, which makes sense because it suppresses the immune response.
A couple years after that, when I was 27 or 28, I was diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome. It causes a lot of fatigue. I'm so much better now, from learning about it and learning how to manage my symptoms through proper diet. The focus on diet has helped me tremendously.
At the time, I lost 12 pounds and was only 98 pounds while on the show and was extremely fatigued. You need health in order to perform. It was scary - I was like, I don't sound like myself, I don't feel like myself. I just felt miserable, and I didn't know why.
What led you to pull back from the entertainment industry?
There was a lot of pressure to give up people in my life. My husband and I were engaged prior to the show, and there was a lot of pressure to separate us, and I chose him.
We're still together, we have 3 kids now, successful careers. I'm glad I made that decision.
Have you been working on any music since then?
I did perform for a bit, with other musicians around Miami. I continued to write music for other artists for a while. After my eldest son was about 3, I just couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to fully immerse myself with family.
We were planning to expand the family, so I knew I could always sing and songwrite, but you only have a limited time to take for yourself and have a family.
After leaving American Idol, you got involved in the tech field. Can you tell us more about that? Has this work been a creative outlet for you?
I work within the media space in tech, which is pretty neat. We manage digital infrastructure, so for content delivery network (CDN) streaming companies, we do a lot of their behind-the-scenes work.
We make the ability for people to watch their favorite shows on Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, and things like that.
I'd imagine your experience from American Idol helped in ways in this career as well?
Yeah, I'd say, especially with media, understanding what goes on in front of the camera in the content side of it.
For instance, we worked on Idol a couple of times to handle the voting for the website, so it was really neat to be able to touch it from both ends and understand the increase in traffic because of the voting and to understand that whole process.
Working in tech has allowed me to have a successful career financially and have the flexibility to be there for my kids. My husband and I are both in tech in different areas, but it has allowed us to build a unique life where we can travel a lot with our kids.
We work from home, so we're here when they get home, we're able to drop them off and take them to the bus. It's really been a blessing.
What's the big takeaway you want your readers to have from the book?
That accomplishing dreams is possible that they can go after their dreams; they can try different things. And that first starts with truly believing that they can do it.
If you have such a deep confidence in yourself, you're not going to listen to people telling you that you can't do something. You believe in yourself; you feel it deep down and you work hard towards your dream, you will accomplish it.
Was there anything that really surprised you about the process of writing, or that you learned while working on your book?
How much goes into it! Finding an illustrator that could take the ideas in my head and create them onto paper was very difficult. That's a true talent for somebody to be able to take someone's words and notes and ideas and create them.
I went through 4 or 5 different illustrators and I finally found the one. She just nailed it. I felt like she was pulling them out of my brain.
For my next book, all of these things will be a lot easier. I'm sure there will be challenges there, too, but more than likely, I won't go through the same challenges. It's been a great learning experience. To just finish it was huge in and of itself.
I didn't realize, like I thought 14 years, I can't believe it took me this long, that a lot of people don't even finish manuscripts or finish stories that they do. I didn't realize that was a big thing for writers, not finishing.
What's next for you? Do you have any other projects in the works right now? You mentioned more books in the future?
I just wrote a story and now I'm meeting with the illustrator to start the whole process. It's "Little Cub's Happiness Quest." It's aimed at helping children understand that happiness begins with them.
It's a cute little funny journey with Little Cub and his forest friends. My kids loved it, they were cracking up when I read it and I'm excited for it for sure.
You can learn more about Christina and her work at: www.ibelieveinmedoyou.com.
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