Lisa K. Winkler

I have worked as a writer and educator. I’ve written plays, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, professional education articles, including many book reviews and author interviews; and childrens’ picture books.

After I started my first blog, cyclingrandma, I invited other women writers to contribute to anthology Tangerine Tango: Women Writers Share Slices of Life. The title was inspired by my love of alliteration and the color orange. Without giving the writers any themes, I received submissions that spanned the entire citrus spectrum, from sour to sweet. Tangerine Tango includes essays and poems about parents, families, jobs, food, and memories

I wrote On the Trail of the Ancestors: A Black Cowboy’s Ride Across America. This book is based on a teacher I met while serving as a literacy consultant in Newark, NJ who rode his horse across the United States to honor the contributions to African Americans in US history.

I grew up in a small town in Connecticut called Killingworth that dates back over 300 years. My father was a poultry farmer and my mother, a native New Yorker, was a former chemist who devoted their 67-year- long marriage to working with my father and raising me and my three siblings. I worked on the farm as well throughout my school years.

Both my parents were active in politics and committed to justice and civil rights. They marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I believe I got my passion for justice and appreciation for diversity from them. When I decided to enter education, I eagerly sought work in Newark, NJ for many years, then taught at a public urban/suburban middle school, then returned to Newark as a literacy consultant.

I was exposed to opera as a child as my mother sang arias as the radio played and while driving us around to activities. My father sang Gilbert & Sullivan excerpts and I learned to play some of the tunes on the piano. When I got married in 1982, my husband and I began attending opera in New York City, buying the $5 seats in the fifth tier. We have continued attending operas, even when we travel, though we now buy better seats.

I learned about Anne Brown while researching topics for a play after I wrote my first two plays. I stumbled upon 365 Women’s Playwriting and began reading through lists of women that hadn’t been written about. When I came to Anne Brown, I read more about her and became fascinated with her story and how she became the first Bess in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. I did more research and wrote a fifteen-page, two-character play that received two readings by professional actors at a playwriting workshop in New York City.

After I wrote the play that I called, Becoming Bess, I continued to be fascinated with the subject. I read more and more, mostly long biographies of George Gershwin and essays about Porgy and Bess. With the exception of one book about Ruby Elzy, the soprano who sang the role of Serena, I found nothing about the other members of the original cast. Hence, I decided to write Anne Brown’s story. I joined a writing group and wrote three drafts with the group before working with a developmental editor. I also perused Anne Brown’s papers housed at Tulane University’s Amistad Center and archives at Juilliard, and interviewed a number of African American opera singers who have sung various roles in the opera.

I’m a mother and grandmother. I serve on the League of Women Voters where I moderate candidate forums and register voters, including new citizens and those citizens re-entering the system after incarceration. I have a BA from Vassar College and an MA in Education from New Jersey City University. I love the outdoors; I hike, bike, swim and walk my rescue dog, Moses. I am devoted to yoga, am a voracious reader and an avid knitter.