Deborah J. Lightfoot   Author and Editor 

 

Castles in the cornfield provided the setting for Deborah J. Lightfoot's earliest flights of fancy. On her father's farm in Texas, she grew up reading tales of adventure and reenacting them behind ramparts of sun-drenched grain. She left the farm to earn a degree in journalism and write award-winning books of history and biography. High on her bucket list was the desire to try her hand at the genre she most admired. The result is Waterspell, a complex, intricately detailed fantasy comprising the original four-book series (Warlock, Wysard, Wisewoman, Witch). New in 2023, The Karenina Chronicles is the first book in a new series also set in the Waterspell universe.

 

Having discovered this world, the author finds it difficult to leave.

 

Deborah is a professional member of the Authors Guild. She still lives in rural Texas. Find her on Instagram @booksofwaterspell and peruse her overflowing, catch-all website at waterspell.net.

 

Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock; Book 2: The Wysard; Book 3: The Wisewoman; and Book 4: The Witch. (Also available in a boxed set: Books 1-4)

 

The Karenina Chronicles: A Waterspell Novel

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(A very old list ... kept here for lack of a better place to store this history. Perhaps I'll get around to updating this ... or perhaps not.)

 

First Place, Trilogy/Fiction, 2013 Texas Association of Authors

Editors' Award, Creative Nonfiction, 2009 Canis Latran Anthology

Prize Winner, Panhandle Professional Writers Frontiers in Writing contest for Memoir: "Filling Spaces" (2006) and "Heima's House" (2005)

Ribbons, 2008 and 2006 State Fair of Texas, Creative Arts: Photography

Prize Winner, Pikes Peak Writers 2005 Paul Gillette Memorial Writing Contest in the Science Fiction/Fantasy Category

Prize Winner, Panhandle Professional Writers 2005 Frontiers in Writing contest for Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror Novel

Award Winner, 2004 Lu Spurlock Black Gold Writing Contest in the Science Fiction/Fantasy Category

"Best of Show," 2002 Laura Bower Van Nuys Writing Contest

First Place, Articles/Essays, 2002 Laura Bower Van Nuys Writing Contest

Finalist, Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel, 2002 Southwest Writers Contest

Quarter-Finalist, Novels/Novellas, 2002 New Century Writer Awards

Planet Doom SF/F Index Cool Site Award for my labor-of-love Web site, Waterspell

History and Heritage Award, 1997, Texas Section, American Society of Civil Engineers

Citations (two) for outstanding contribution toward the preservation of the history of Texas, 1993 San Antonio Conservation Society

Finalist, 1989 C. L. Sonnichsen Book Award competition

Nonfiction Book Awards, 1988 and 1989 Texas-Wide Writers' Competition

Certificates of Merit, 1984 and 1986 Livestock Publications Council

Named Gift honoree, 1984–1985 American Association of University Women Educational Foundation and a Foundation Grant Recipient

1978 Senior Merit Award in Agricultural Journalism, Texas A&M University

1976 Thomas S. Gathright Academic Excellence Award

25-year Member The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi

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Here's a partial list of the places where I've stood up (or sat down) and talked:

Barnes & Noble Booksellers

Black Gold Writing Conference

Cattle Raisers Museum

Center for Texas Studies

Dallas Community Television

 

Farmers Branch Manske Library

Fort Worth City Video

Fort Worth Corral of The Westerners

Fort Worth Council of Reading

Freelance Writers Network

Friends of the Fort Worth Public Library
Book & Author Luncheon

Great American Read Aloud

The Mosaic of Texas Culture,
Hardin-Simmons University

Newcastle School

Old Trail Drivers Association of Texas

Paragon Community Television

Renner Frankford Texas Book Festival,
Dallas Public Library

 

Sam Houston State University,

Department of Library Science

San Benito CISD Annual Literary Conference

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, North Central/Northeast Texas Chapter

Take 190 West Book and Art Festival

 

Tarrant County College

Texas Folklore Society

"Texas Shelf," TCU Radio, Texas Christian University

 

Trinity Writers' Workshop/
Tarrant County College Writing Conference

University of North Texas

Waldenbooks/Ozark Literacy Council

Various other readers', writers', school, and library groups

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Deborah J. Lightfoot (known to some readers as Deborah Lightfoot Sizemore and to others as D.J. Lightfoot) was born on the South Plains of Texas, the daughter of a farmer and the granddaughter of a cowboy. Her grandmother is on the honor roll of Texas quilters. An agricultural journalism graduate, summa cum laude, of Texas A&M University, she is the author of three books and many articles about the American Southwest. Her first book, The LH7 Ranch (University of North Texas Press), was a finalist for the C.L. Sonnichsen Book Award and won a San Antonio Conservation Society publication award, as did her second book, Trail Fever (Wm. Morrow, New York), published under the name D.J. Lightfoot for readers 9 and up. With the late Simon W. Freese, P.E., she coauthored A Century In the Works (TAMU Press), which received the History and Heritage Award from the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. An Anglophile, she has focused on British medieval history and folklore for her new fantasy trilogy, Waterspell, published under her Lightfoot byline. In manuscript and since publication, Waterspell has won awards in several contests.

Additional Background for the Curious:
Deborah grew up writing, reading everybody from Tolkien to Kjelgaard to Orwell, studying nature on the farm and playing clarinet in the school band. Her band letter-sweater, a favorite keepsake, displays a National Honor Society pin with her solo-and-ensemble contest ribbons, and academic medals in English and History alongside one for Algebra: proof that writers can do math.

At Texas A&M she switched majors from Wildlife Science to Agricultural Journalism upon realizing that a bachelor of science in journalism would support any kind of words-work she might ever want to do.

There have been many kinds. She's a former newspaper copyeditor and reporter, more recently a magazine editor and feature writer, frequently a teacher and a speaker, and currently a science writer, educational writer, book manuscript editor, author of three award-winning volumes of history and biography ... and with the Waterspell trilogy, a novelist and fantasist. Thus she may claim not to have held a real job for twenty years.

Besides writing, editing, reading, photography, and launching her own publishing venture, her pleasures include traveling abroad and hiking the Yorkshire moors, Vancouver Island's Pacific Rim National Park, and Jalisco's La Primavera Bosque. She stretches a pinchpenny decorating budget between two houses: a two-story in Texas that she and her husband, Gene Sizemore, built from scratch, and a red-tile-roof masonry casa that they acquired on impulse while vacationing in Mexico.

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