Deborah Voorhees

I have lived a colorful life—journalist, filmmaker, writer, editor, teacher, even a Hollywood B-scream starlet and a Playboy Bunny.

Most recently (2014), I released my indie film Billy Shakespeare, which I wrote and directed.

London film critic Paul Worts calls it “a modern-day love letter to the immortal bard delivered in an envelope of side-swiping parody at Hollywood.”

This comedy of errors asks, What if William Shakespeare never existed until now? Our Modern Bard is caught in a love triangle of confused sexuality, cross dressing, mistaken identity, and bedroom trysts.

Summer 2013, I work as a screenwriting coach for author Hardy Roper to adapt his book Assassination in Galveston for film.

“While searching for a screen writing teacher, I happened upon Deborah Voorhees: the hardest working teacher I have ever encountered. What a find! Deborah knows her stuff. Lucky me…I couldn’t have found a more dedicated teacher. Deborah is knowledgeable and professional. If you want a mentor easy to work with who will stay with you until you’ve finished your project, choose Deborah. She will not let you fail.” – Hardy Roper

Now I am in pre-production with my screenplay, Mores (working title), and I am writing another Shakespeare script for the screen.

My career as a writer began in 1990 at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. As a 16-year veteran journalist (mostly with The Dallas Morning News), I have covered a variety of stories: a mother on death row for killing her abusive husband, a schizophrenic psyche patient at the Austin State Hospital (who’s also a nationally known folk artist), the fall of communism through the eyes of a Russian immigrant, a profile on Texas rancher Nan West (she’s good with a gun, but never goes into town unless she dons a dress), a horseback adventure through the Badlands of Mexico (I rode illegally across the border for that story), master African-American muralist John Biggers’ journey through the white art world.

I have written seven screenplays including being hired to adapt Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford for film. During my tenure as a journalist, I interviewed three government assassins extensively over the course of a decade to create the composite lead character Jake in my unpublished novel Memoirs of a Hit Man.

As an instructor (2006-2011) I have taught high school AP English, grammar, AP British literature (including Shakespeare), and journalism in New Mexico and Texas, and Acting for Film at Eastern New Mexico University.

EDUCATION: I graduated magna cum laude (3.87 GPA) in 1990 from Texas Woman’s University with a degree in journalism. Currently, I am studying Shakespeare’s World and Shakespeare’s Hamlet online with professor Jonathan Bate at University of Warwick and professor Michael Dobson with the University of Birmingham (respectively).