Writer’s Recollections: The Younger Years

Dede Fox attributes her love of language to her parents. When she was little, they insisted upon reading Shakespeare to her, along with The Poky Little Puppy, The Little Engine That Could, Grimms’ fairy tales, and first editions of the L. Frank Baum Oz series.

The poetry bug bit Dede when she was sixteen and heard a bearded Alan Ginsberg reading his work at Holmes Lounge, a coffee house on the Washington University campus in St. Louis. Dede later attended that college, where she interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate Howard Nemerov for the school paper. One of her favorite college memories is visiting with Pete Seeger while he tuned his guitar in the Holmes Lounge kitchen where she worked. And although Tennessee Williams dropped out of “Wash U,” Dede managed to graduate with an English degree and a teaching certificate.