Winsome Bingham Writes for the Child She Once Was and the Children Who Came After

(JERSEY CITY, N.J.) — In the summer of 2022, Winsome Bingham was invited to speak on a virtual panel for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. When the moderator asked each guest — all first-time authors — to share details about their writing processes, some described churning out multiple drafts, long sessions with writing partners, and painstaking edits. Bingham differed. When it was her turn, she chuckled and told the room, “I just write.”

She doesn’t remember this. But four years later, she doubles down on it. “My process is to write,” she tells me without hesitation.

By the end of this year, the 54-year-old author will have released 11 children’s books in five years. Published in 2021, her debut title, “Soul Food Sunday,”about a boy who learns independence through cooking soul food, landed on the New York Times  list of the 25 best children’s books that year. The book received the Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text the following year.

Bingham has since published several children’s books, with these titles due this year: “Together“, Farewell Friends,” and “On Fridays ” — all stories about family, friendship, and grief in the Black community. 

Bingham has thrived in her second life as an author, which is no small feat, given that writing wasn’t her first career choice. The former Army soldier went from teaching middle school to editing children’s books. Although she downplays her creative process, she knows it’s not easy: “There’s no such thing as overnight success,” she says, smiling slightly over Zoom from her home in Groton, Connecticut. “What you didn’t see was the years of planning, organizing, galvanizing, and strategizing.” 

Maintaining her schedule is mandatory for her work. A minute before we were scheduled for meet by Zoom,  Bingham messaged, “Good morning, I am here.” She loves her routine. Having time to write, rest, and travel to promote her books is essential to her well-being. This often involves her spending a lot of time alone. “I like to preserve my energy,” she says,  adding it “helps me be a better storyteller.”

Today, she’s wearing a parakeet-green sweatshirt and rose-tinted glasses with black frames. Every now and then, she sips tea from a navy and powder-blue ceramic mug. Her salt-and-pepper coils are tightly curled. Behind her is a pink, brown, and tan paper-mâché art piece. On one side of the screen, magnets hold up photos, a to-do list, and a gifted construction-paper artwork. 

Asked why she writes, Bingham says, “So erasure will not be the foundation of African American storytelling.” A week before our meeting, a child told her that her books are relatable. For Bingham, that was the biggest honor. She says her stories are “creative resistance.” Writing about topics like voting, Black American tradition — and even her choice to use a writing style that reflects how her audience speaks — is activism.

Bingham also writes for her inner child. Her books are like healing boomerangs she creates to escape or cope with trauma while giving children the chance to see themselves. Writing allows her to time-travel to being an 8-year-old girl. It allows her to revisit her life before the trauma that she experienced while serving in the Army. “When I’m writing, I’m thinking about an eight-year-old,” she says. “Because I need to make sure that voice is centric.”

How Bingham began

Bingham was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved with her family to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when she was 12. Every summer, she would visit relatives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she developed her thick New York accent. 

Her grandmother raised her alongside cousins who were like siblings to Bingham. “We grew up in packs of threes,” she recalls. She ran track at Fort Lauderdale High School and remembers a time when her coach threatened to tell the school board that she was not at the right school for her neighborhood because she wanted to quit track. “I kept running even though I hated it,” she says. “It wasn’t fun anymore.”

Soon after graduating, Bingham joined the U.S. Army in 1989. For the next two years, she served as a soldier during Operation Desert Storm — the combat phase of the 1990-1991 Gulf War. She considers herself a “tough” soldier, often given extra responsibilities by her superior.

One of her hobbies influenced her next career move.

“While I was in the military, my commander had a daughter who was struggling with reading. I was like, ‘it’s so easy,’” Bingham remembers. One day, her commander told her she should be a teacher. She took his advice, left the military in 1992, and majored in education at the University of South Florida. The program helped train her to work with children with disabilities. “The military would send soldiers to work with students, people with disabilities [at Camp Joy]. I loved it,” she says.

By 1998, Bingham was a full-time teacher. Teaching shaped her storytelling skills. She learned what children enjoy about reading and incorporates those gems in each of her books.

A decade later, Bingham worked alongside her colleague Poketha Ruffin in Virginia as a co-teacher, where a special education and general education teacher handles a single class. Ruffin was a sixth-year language arts teacher when she met Bingham nearly 30 years ago. The two lost contact after they stopped working together and reconnected a few years ago. 

Ruffin speaks fondly of her time working with Bingham, holding back tears. Ruffin quit her job when she found out that the school district would be splitting her and Bingham up. At the time, Bingham had started writing stories for children with learning disabilities, including details like their names and interests, to help them learn to read. It was no surprise to Ruffin that Bingham became a decorated author. “Storytelling has always been a part of her,” says Ruffin. 

Bingham stopped teaching in 2012. She says that, by that point, she’d been living with a traumatic brain injury and depression after serving in the Army, and the effects became more difficult to manage over time. She sought help from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where her therapist gave her a challenge. She remembers the therapist asking, “What is it that you like doing?” Bingham recalled two interests: bowling and writing. “Every week, you had to write something. And that’s how all of this came about for me,” she says. That year she wrote “Soul Food Sunday.

It’s clear why she doesn’t consider herself an overnight success. “Children want to be seen,” she says, “and this is my homage.” 

Well before the release of “Soul Food Sunday,” Bingham was working with fellow editor Eileen Robinson at Reycraft Books, a New York-based children’s publishing company that welcomes authors and illustrators from underrepresented communities. “She’s one of the smartest people I have ever met,” says Robinson. “What you see in her writing is who she is. There’s a truth to her all the way through.” 

“Soul Food Sunday” was Bingham’s debut picture book. [Credit: Abrams Books for Young Readers]

Bingham often relives the trauma of war. In the summer of 2023, she began experiencing symptoms of depression, PTSD, and anxiety. “I was getting worse by the day, and I canceled a lot of things,” she recalls. The following year, while promoting four book releases in two months, she was hospitalized. She expected to be monitored for six weeks and ended up needing six months of care. She worried that her health would delay the release of “Missing Momma,” her picture book about PTSD. “It really hurt me because it’s about a little girl dealing with her mom [who has] PTSD,” says Bingham.

She considers “The Walk“ one of her best books. In it, a girl and her grandmother walk to the voting polls. Bingham’s language is plain and specific, with phrases like “You right about that,” untampered with to honor Granny’s voice. The phrase “And we walk on” is repeated throughout. Tonally, the book feels like a calm weekday morning. 

“The Walk”seamlessly embeds complex topics like the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the Black barber shop, and community organizing.

Bingham says the book was plagiarized by another author, which she discovered after finding it on a best books list. “They had the same repetition,” she says. She called her editor and publisher, but ultimately, there was no resolution. “It bothers me,” she says. “I’m in a season of regret. [It’s difficult]when you see someone take your work, and no one is fighting for you. I regret writing that book,” Bingham says. 

“On Fridays” is one of Bingham’s upcoming releases. [Credit: Neal Porter Books]

Bingham has no plans to retire anytime soon. “There’s no such thing as retirement from storytelling,” she assures. Next on her agenda, after we met, was a gathering at activist and journalist Gloria Steinem’s house in April to discuss book bans. 

I ask Bingham how she would label this stage of her life, turning 55. “In November, my birthday, I could go to IHOP and get the Rise and Shine,” she says, joking about using IHOP’s 55+ deals. Later, she revisits the question. “I have lived. I have lived,” she says. “And now I get to tell my story.”