Denise Gee
has a gift for storytelling
& educational engagement.
During her youth in the
historic river city of Natchez, Mississippi, her family’s four-story Victorian home was decidedly different from its neighborhood 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 upper floors housed rental apartments—and an evolving cast of characters—while, nearly every sunset, the home’s wraparound front porch was a magnet for family, friends and tourists aiming to savor cocktails and nibbles with spirited conversation.
Inspired by the colorful people, and architectural and verdant splendor 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 only for her, but also for family friend Nora Ephron (see her tribute to Lee here).
After earning a degree in journalism at LSU, Denise honed her storytelling craft at newspapers before her love of beautiful food and decor translated 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).
Denise would go on to write and style five Southern entertaining books with her husband, photographer Robert M. Peacock (all for Chronicle Books); serve as photo-stylist for The Mansion on Turtle Creek: Haute Cuisine, Texas Style cookbook (Rizzoli); and co-write Uncommon Thread, the memoir of Peacock Alley Luxury Linens founder Mary Ella Gabler. She also has written and styled content for many leading magazines.
From 2010 to 2018 Denise pursued her publishing work while also serving as Media Relations Manager for Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She earned the university numerous awards for creative marketing content and helped promote SMU’s dynamism to a global audience through creative multimedia projects and cultivated media outreach.
Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Denise now channels her publishing and education expertise—and love of storytelling—into her role as Strategic Communications Coordinator for the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program and its AMBER Alert in Indian Country initiative. Both programs, affiliated with the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College, are funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of her work she also serves as Managing Editor/Designer of the quarterly AMBER Advocate magazine, and helps curate its website and social media content.
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)