Alice Anna Reese writes fiction and nonfiction for children, is an animal scientist, and has
taught elementary school.
My essay on Helen Stephens, “Fulton’s Fleetest Feet,” won first prize in the essay division of
the One Hundred Years Writing Contest of the Daniel Boone Regional Library. A couple of my
stories won Prince Edward Island’s (Canada) Lucy Maud Montgomery Awards for Children’s
Literature. Recently, Heinrich Leonhard and I put together a book of famous Missourians that
appears on this website. I did the writing. Heinrich did the illustrated games.
I have poems and/or stories in Prince Edward Island’s blue SHIFT, Kindred Spirits, and Common
Ground magazines, and in the collections TWiG Anthology, TWiG Branches Out, The
Communication Bridge and The Communication Link. The monologue ‘Persimmon Pudding,’
about the disaster that was my wedding, was presented as part of Solo Works: an evening of
marvelously original monologues.
I am a founding member of The Writers in Group (TWiG), a writing and publishing cooperative
in Prince Edward Island. Currently, I am a member of the Columbia Branch of Missouri Writers’
Guild; Columbia Freelance Forum; and Write/Hear, Columbia’s branch of the Society of
Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) aka Scwibby. I am the newly designated
Published And Listed (PAL) coordinator for SCBWI Missouri. As PAL coordinator, it is my job
to see that Missouri’s published authors of children’s books sell a zillion copies and make a wad
of money.
I have a B.A. in English from U.C.L.A. and a Ph.D. in animal science from North Carolina State
University. I studied playwriting with David Marcia and David Crespy at the University of
Missouri. I was a substitute teacher in East L.A. (awful) and taught first and second grades in
Prince Edward Island, Canada (delightful). The Canadians have a different version of the War of
1812. I just teach. I never argue. I currently volunteer in the art room at Lee Elementary School
in Columbia, Missouri. For a couple of years I was a mentor with Stand By Me for Columbia
Public Schools and I’ve also volunteered with challenged adults at Douglass School.
While making clothes for commercials in Hollywood, I acted in some free theater and made a
dozen films. I was either raped or killed or both in all of them. Is that type casting? While living
in Venice (California), Garst Reese moved in next door. He wanted to go to Africa, so I married
him and got a Ph.D. in animal science. Over the years, I’ve done research in ruminant nutrition
in Mexico, Indonesia, and Mali (West Africa). While working in Indonesia, I taught my
coworkers conversational English. In Mali, where researchers speak French, I taught them
English for writing scientific papers.
I am a docent at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, edit the newsletter for the Columbia
branch of the American Association of University Women, am on the judging team for the Jackie
White Memorial Playwriting Contest, and feed and water two dogs, two egg-laying hens and one
disheveled husband.