“Texas has a vibrant writing community. Fellow writers have been the best teachers and my primary support system.”
-Dede Fox
A member of the Writers’ League for two years, Dede Fox lives in The Woodlands, Texas.
Scribe: In what genre(s) do you write?
Dede Fox: I write YA historical and realistic fiction novels, non-fiction articles for Highlights for Children magazine, and poetry.
Scribe: What authors would you like to have coffee or a beer with and which beverage?
DF: Anthony Doerr would be an amazing companion at tea, which is my preferred beverage.
Scribe: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what book would you want to have with you to keep you sane?
DF: Are you kidding me? As a school librarian for eighteen years, I couldn’t possibly pick one book. Childhood favorites were The Secret Garden, The Wizard of Oz Series, and Jane Eyre. In recent years, I particularly like The Book Thief and All the Light We Cannot See, among many others.
Scribe: What have you learned from your association with the Writers’ League?
DF: The Writers League publications have helped me stay in touch with craft lessons, authors, and conferences available in Texas. Texas has a vibrant writing community. Fellow writers have been the best teachers and my primary support system.
Scribe: Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?
DF: I hope to continue submitting poetry to anthologies (and having them accepted) until I have enough to fill a third book. My YA novel in verse that’s set in Mexico, 1968 is being read by an agent right now and hope to see it published.
Scribe: Here at the Writers’ League, we love sharing book recommendations. What’s one Texas-related book that has come out within the past year that you couldn’t put down?
DF: Sarah Bird’s Above the East China Sea is brilliant. Wendy Barker, Anne McCready, Larry D. Thomas, Dave Parsons, Carrie Fountain, Sandi Stromberg, Ada Fuller, and many other Texas poets write beautifully as well.
Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world? An opportunity for blatant self-promotion!
DF: Here’s my official bio: Dede Fox is a third generation Texan whose publishing credits include TCU Press’s The Treasure in the Tiny Blue Tin, a middle grade historical novel and Sydney Taylor Honor book; multiple nonfiction articles for Highlights Magazine; and two poetry books–Confessions of a Jewish Texan (Poetica, 2013) and Postcards Home (Ink Brush Press, 2014). Her poetry can also be found in di-verse-city, The Enigmatist, Far Out: Poems from the Sixties, Poetica, Sol, A Summer’s Poems, Swirl, Texas Poetry Calendar, and Untameable City. “Chapultepec Park” won the Christina Sergeyevna Award at the Austin International Poetry Festival, and she has twice been a juried poet at Houston Poetry Fest.
A former public school educator, Dede taught with Houston’s Writers in the Schools program. She serves on the board of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council and received the 2015 Montie Award for the Literary Arts. In Spring, 2016, she will teach writing to female inmates at a minimum security federal prison camp.
