John DeDakis
Journalist, Novelist, and Writing Coach John DeDakis is a former Senior Copy Editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” DeDakis (pronounced deh-DAY-kiss) is the author of five novels in the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense series. His fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, is the winner of Reviewers Choice, Foreword INDIES, and Feathered Quill book awards. The book deals, in part, with the death of John’s 22-year-old son Stephen in 2011.
In John’s most recent novel, Fake, Lark is a White House correspondent dealing with “fake news” in the era of #MeToo. Kirkus Reviews calls Fake “A gripping, topical tale about the difficulties of discerning the truth.”
During John’s award-winning 45-year career in journalism (25 years at CNN), he has been a White House Correspondent and interviewed such luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. DeDakis has taught journalism at the University of Maryland – College Park, and American University in Washington, D.C.
DeDakis is a manuscript editor, and regularly teaches novel writing at literary centers, writers’ conferences, and bookstores around the country and abroad, including at the Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C. and at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In his spare time, DeDakis is also a jazz drummer.