Welcome to Deborah's world
of words and photos
Read. View. Enjoy
This site highlights her writing and showcases
her photos from around the world.
Who is Deborah Barrett
Deborah Barrett is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, a lover of nature, and an amateur photographer.
She is a retired professor in the practice of writing and communication at Rice University in Houston, where she taught communication, creative writing, and literature from 1998 to 2025. She has a PhD in English from Rice and a BA and MA in English from the University of Houston. She has published creative nonfiction, poetry, and scholarly articles on literature, communication, and leadership, and a textbook, Leadership Communication.
Deborah still teaches writing courses in Rice's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies part time and coaches the Women Writers of Life Stories, a group of talented women writers. She is writing poetry and creative nonfiction essays, and working on publishing her novel.
Her creative writing is published as Deborah Barrett and Deborah Burch-Lavis.
Selected Awards and Publications
Recent Awards
John Freeman Faculty Teaching Award, GLS Program, Rice University, 2019
Accepted as Contributor to Bread Loaf Writers Conference for poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction
Selected Publications
“Vanishing Beauty and Freedom,” America’s Slide Towards Authoritarianism, International Human Rights Art Movement, September 2025.
“The Peacocks and the Sisters” (Essay and Photos), Soul Poetry, Prose, and Arts Magazine, Summer 2025.
“Transcendence,” Soul Poetry, Prose, and Arts Magazine, Summer 2025.
“The Bed I Made” and “Unchained Memories,” Survival and Beyond Anthology, Safe Passage.org, Summer 2025.
"Unchained Memories" and "The Bed I Made," Survival and Beyond, Safe Passages Publishing, 2025.
"The First Meeting," Out of Line--Who Defines, Wising Up Press, 2024.
"To Reach the Lyre's Strings," SIEVA Magazine, Vol 1, 2023.
The Desert Speaks to the Dreamer, Poetry Chapbook, Finishing Line Press, 2019.
"Max's Story," Historic Heights Living Magazine, 2018
"The Waiting Room," Harmony: Humanities Magazine from the Program in Medical Humanities, 2016
"Am I my Sister's Daughter," Siblings, Muse Write Press, 2015
"The Last Christmas," Shifts, Wising Up Press, 2014, USA Best Book Awards Finalist.
Leadership Communication, 4th edition, 2014.