Taking every opportunity
Children's writer Linda Trice perseveres and succeeds.
By Della A. Yannuzzi
“It takes guts to get a picture book published,” children’s writer
Linda Trice says. Her second children’s book written thirteen years
earlier was releas... more

Taking every opportunity
Children's writer Linda Trice perseveres and succeeds.

By Della A. Yannuzzi

“It takes guts to get a picture book published,” children’s writer
Linda Trice says. Her second children’s book written thirteen years
earlier was released in 2006 by Charlesbridge Publishers.



“Charlesbridge receives about 2,500 manuscripts each year,
but only twenty are published,” Trice said. “Kenya’s Word was one of
the lucky few.”

I met Trice about five years ago at a week long children’s writing
workshop in the historic town of Chautauqua, New York. We were
both there to network with other writers and to learn how to become
better writers. There were many published writers at the workshop, but there were also many
more aspiring ones still hoping for their first big break.



Trice was a writer at heart. She knew from a young age that she wanted to become a writer. She
says by the age of three she had learned to read and by five she was making up her own stories.
“I loved stories. When my parents were too busy to tell them, I’d make some up myself.”

Trice’s desire to become a full-time writer stayed with her, but her dream was put on hold while
she went on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree, a Master of Fine Arts Degree, and a PhD.



“I came from a family of educators and they strongly believed that teaching or social work were
the best career choices for an educated black woman. My parents believed that if people were
educated about minorities, relations would improve among races of different colors.”
Trice’s mother knew how interested her daughter was in writing.

One day, her mom saw an announcement in the Amsterdam News a New York City newspaper.
She explains, “John Oliver Killens, one of the country’s top black writers was giving a free writing
workshop at Columbia University. The competition was fierce, but I was one of the lucky few.
Poet Nikki Giovanni was in that group. Poet Quincy Troupe was also in our class. One man,
Walter Dean Myers, had several stories published and a children’s book Where Does the Day
Go Daddy?”

Over the years, Trice and Myers became good friends, and as his career soared and he became
an award winning author, she struggled with a failed marriage, raising a daughter alone, and
working as an educator. Trice hardly had time to write, but somehow she found the energy and
time to work as a freelance reporter, write book reviews, poetry, and articles on writing. She was
one month from getting tenure when she lost her teaching job due to New York budget cutbacks.
She found a job working for a career magazine but she had trouble making ends meet.



“Every time I’d call my mom she’d say, 'Honey, it won’t get much worse.' But it did.”
When Trice’s parents got ill, she moved from New York City to Florida to help her sister care for
them. It was then that she decided to write full time. It was now or never.



“I learned about the National League of American Pen Women and joined the local branch,” she
says. She also joined the Sarasota Fiction Writers. Poets and Writers magazine’s Directory of
American Writers listed her.

Trice concentrated on writing, but personal problems persisted. “My mom was placed in a
home for people with Alzheimer’s. Then my dad died, and later, my agent passed on. I had no
car, and had to rely on local transportation to get anywhere. Still Trice managed to write a weekly
book review column, and have fiction, nonfiction and poetry published. In 2001 her first children’s
biography was published by McGraw-Hill. Charles Drew: Pioneer of Blood Plasma told the story
of the African-American surgeon who thought of preserving blood plasma and created blood
banks during War World II.

Whenever I talked to Trice, she was always working on something new or sending manuscripts
out to markets. An article on children’s writer Walter Dean Myers, “Mentor and Voice, For Young
America” was published in Florida Family Magazine and won a Silver Award from the Parenting
Magazine Press Association. Her story “Painting Hope” on African-American artist Jacob
Lawrence was published in Highlights for Children. It won the magazine’s Pewter Plate Prize
award for Biography of the Year.

Then, in 2006, Trice’s picture book Kenya’s Word was published by the school division of
Charlesbridge Publishers. Kenya’s Word is a good example of a writer never giving up on a
manuscript. In 1993 Myers had actually suggested to her an idea about a girl whose homework
is to bring in her favorite word.

“I thought about it,” Trice said, “and sat down and wrote. I submitted it to a competition for
people who’d never had a book published, but it didn’t win. Then I sent it to every publisher I
could think of. No one wanted it.”

After receiving numerous rejections, she finally put away and didn’t take a fresh look at it until
another writing colleague suggested she look into new markets.

With the publication of her second book, Trice was invited to speak at schools, community
centers, and libraries. She signed her new book at Barnes and Noble in
Sarasota. Tour stops included the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators annual
conference in Northern Virginia.

In February 2006, Trice sat next to Walter Dean Myers at a book fair organized by her daughter,
now a lawyer and director at Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City. Trice and Myers signed
copies of their books.

Trice told me that at one point Myers turned to her and held up a copy of Kenya’s Word. “It looks
good,” he said. “It turned out all right.”

“I always wanted to be a writer,” Trice told me. “I took every opportunity that came my way. Like
my heroine Kenya, I was determined and tried to stay positive. I guess it worked.”

____________________

Della Yannuzzi is the author of several children’s biographies. Her new one on Marie Curie will
be published in fall 2006 by Morgan Reynolds.

Published with permission in Creative Writer US 11-07-06;
copyright Della A. Yannuzzi/all rights reserved

Hi Eric
Thanks for welcoming me.
Beware of those alligators in FL. I used to live in Sarasota. People said the gators only feed at night. Then we heard of home invasions by gators during the day, I now live in NYC where we have the gators in the sewers, or so they say. No one has seen one... more

Hi Eric
Thanks for welcoming me.
Beware of those alligators in FL. I used to live in Sarasota. People said the gators only feed at night. Then we heard of home invasions by gators during the day, I now live in NYC where we have the gators in the sewers, or so they say. No one has seen one yet.
Linda