Deborah Barrett is a professor in the practice of writing and communication at Rice University, in Houston, where she teaches graduate courses in academic writing and research, creative writing, and literature. She has a Ph.D. in English and has published scholarly articles on literature, communication, and leadership and a textbook, Leadership Communication (McGraw-Hill). She has participated in the Southampton Writers Conference, the Bay Path Summer Writing Seminar in Ireland, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences for creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She is currently finishing a novel and working on a collection of poems about storms.