Little wonder
Denise Gee has
a gift for Southern storytelling and entertaining.
During her youth in the
historic river city of Natchez, Mississippi, her family’s four-story Victorian home was decidedly different from its downtown counterparts. Much of the first floor comprised a clothing boutique, where antique bric-a-brac was sold alongside jams and jellies made by her grandmother, “Aunt” Freddie Bailey. The home’s upper floors housed rental apartments (and an evolving cast of characters) while, nearly every sunset, the wraparound front porch served as a magnet for family, friends and tourists aiming to savor cocktails and nibbles with spirited conversation.
Inspired by the colorful people, architectural/natural splendor all around her, Denise chose to follow in the path of her cousin, designer-author Lee Bailey. His “don’t gild the lily” approach to style and entertaining would be a creative compass not just for her, but Nora Ephron (see her Lee tribute here).
After earning a degree in journalism at LSU, Denise honed her storytelling craft at newspapers before getting to channel her love of beautiful food and decor into editorships at Better Homes & Gardens, Southern Living and Coastal Living.
Click here to see the Better Homes & Gardens video spotlight on Denise’s hit book Porch Parties: Cocktail Recipes & Easy Ideas for Outdoor Entertaining (Chronicle Books).
Subsequently Denise has written and styled five Southern entertaining books with her husband, photographer Robert M. Peacock (all for Chronicle Books); served as photo-stylist for The Mansion on Turtle Creek: Haute Cuisine, Texas Style cookbook (Rizzoli); and co-wrote Uncommon Thread, the memoir of Peacock Alley Luxury Linens founder Mary Ella Gabler.
Now based in McKinney, Texas (north of Dallas), Denise is working on new publishing projects while serving as writer-publicist for the national AMBER Alert training program.
Denise Gee helped her cousin, Lee Bailey, produce the James Beard Award-winning book Lee Bailey's Southern Food & Plantation Houses, which focused on her hometown of Natchez.
HAPPY CLIENTS
• Better Homes and Gardens
& other Meredith Corp. publications
• Chronicle Books
• Pottery Barn
• Organic Gardening/Living (Rodale Press)
• Anthropologie
• Peacock Alley Luxury Linens
• Clarkson Potter
• Southern Living & other Time Inc. titles
• Peacock Alley Luxury Linens
• Pace Communications custom publishing
projects for Walmart, Wells Fargo, others
• Kroger Supermarkets
• Rizzoli USA
• D Magazine/D Home
• Interior Design
• Southern Methodist University’s
Human Rights Program
• AMBER Advocate (National Criminal
Justice Training Center)