In 1997 Deidra returned to writing poetry after more than 20 years of focusing on her professional career in communications. In 2000, she took a hiatus from work to attend the MFA program at Vermont College where she studied under Richard Jackson, Betsy Sholl, Bill Olsen, and Roger Weingarten.

In 2001 she was selected as Montgomery County Poet Laureate in a competition judged by Robert Hass. Also that year, she received a Leeway Emerging Artist Award and was nominated by Vermont College for the Modern Poetry Association's Ruth Lily Fellowship. In 2002, she was a finalist for a Pew Fellowship in poetry.

Today, Deidra tries to balance her creative writing life with the demands of her professional career—a challenge in which she is not always successful, though ever hopeful. She credits the support of her weekly poetry group, 34th Street Poets, with helping her to keep focused and motivated.