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Biography Comes to Life with Susanna Reich

© Sue Reichard

Susanna Reich is a creative woman of many talents. She is a dancer who trained at the American Ballet Theatre School in New York and the Royal Academy of Dancing in London. She also has taught dance and is a choreographer. Susanna also loves flowers and flower arranging. She owned her own shop that specialized in wedding arrangements. She wrote some articles about flowers and this soon blossomed into a new career, writing. Susanna's family is a musical one and her mother thought piano virtuoso, Clara Schumann, would be a fascinating person to write about.

Susanna's award-winning book, "Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso",(Clarion, 1999), won an Orbis Pictus Honor from the National Council of Teachers of English, it was an American Library Association (ALA) Notable, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and "School Library Journal" named it Best Book of the Year. Not bad for a beginner!

Please read and study "Clara Schumann" and observe what it takes to be an award-winning, first-rate biography for children. Suzanne bring the Clara to life by using excerpts from her diaries and letters. At age six Clara was already a piano virtuoso. Her father was very strict and had her performing recitals by age nine. Clara fell in love with one of her father's piano students and against her father's will marries Robert Schumann. This was a marriage troubled by Robert's bouts of depression which eventually led him to the insane asylum. Clara was devoted to her husband and his music and although he died at an early age she continued her own performing career for 35 more years.

Susanne has recently completed a biography of Jose Limon, a Mexican-American dancer and choreographer which will be published in 2005.

1.SR. Was their anyone from your childhood who inspired or encouraged you to read or write?

Susanna: My parents, who valued education, demonstrated a love of books andreading, took me to the library, and always had plenty of children's books in the house.

2.SR: When did you know or when did you develop your interest in writing?

Susanna: I had an English teacher in high school named Charles Aschmann. He had a big, booming voice and impossibly high standards, and we were all a little bit afraid of him. I learned to write in Mr. Aschmann's class, but didn't become interested in writing professionally until many years later.

3.SR: How did your interest in writing for children develop?

Susanna: Slowly. For about ten years I studied t'ai chi with Ed Young, who also happens to be a fantastic children's book illustrator. Ed would

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