The former spouse of Dave Foley and author Tabatha Southey. She didn’t begin writing professionally until much later in life, after having two children, returning to Toronto in the late 1990s, doing various odd jobs, living in the US, and working different odd jobs.
On December 31, 1991, she got married, however they later divorced. Dave and she first met at a club in 1983 while looking for antique clothing when he was just 20 and she was 17. They planned to marry after dating for eight years, and were fortunate to have two boys.
The couple separated in 1997 after their marriage failed to last. On August 1st, 2002, he married Crissy Guerrero after divorcing his first wife. Their daughter Alina can be found on Twitter with the handle @Alinafooley. She is a young actress who was born in 2003.
They separated in the year 2008. After making amends, they were remarried on December 31, 2016. When they disagreed about whether the lead vocalist of the band, the Psychedelic Furs, was a respectable singer, according to Dave, their relationship officially began not long after they had first met. He was married for six years, from 1991 to 1997, to his first wife, and for six years, from 2002 to 2008, to his second wife, Crissy Guerrero.
Tabatha Southey Children: Basil And Edmund
The boys of Dave and Tabitha are Basin and Edmund. Both sons share a home with their mother and even bear her last name. Crissy, their sister from an other mother, is also theirs.
Edmund was born in 1991, their sister Alina Chiara Foley on April 16, 2003, and Basil Patrick was born in 1995.
All of the children now reside with their mother because their parents are no longer together. Foley married Canadian author Tabatha Southey on December 31, 1991, however the couple eventually divorced in 1997. The couple had two children.
Foley was obligated to pay Southey $ 10,700 per month under an interim child support arrangement dated 2001, which was determined using his earnings from the time when NewsRadion was in production.
She went to university at the age of 21 and is now having nightmares over having missed the six credits. She also attended lessons for three days before moving to New York with her partner and abandoning her education, which she now regrets. She does, however, provide her intelligent children a proper education. She is also a very supportive and joyful mother.
Where Is Tabatha Southey Now?
Tabatha Southey is presently in Toronto. She recently stated on social media that she was heading to Toronto City Hall’s chapel.
She previously wrote columns for the Toronto, Canada-based Globe and Mail. She was born in Canada’s Etobicoke, Ontario, and is 56 years old. She has the most wonderful eyes and is intelligent, funny, and gorgeous. She has a wonderful chuckle and eleven nominations for National Magazine Awards.
She recently wrote on Facebook that she has COVID. First off, a few days of COVID are best compared to catching a severe cold the day after winning a marathon and partying all night with scotch. The unvaccinated were best described as Breathless Hell, so it beats them.
She disclosed that the owners recently provided food for their son’s wedding. Fortunately, she gets an invite to one of her favorite Toronto hangouts.
She was born in Vancouver about nine months after her parents emigrated from South Africa. She was reared in Guelph and left on her own when she was sixteen to live in Toronto.
Tabatha Southey on Women, Working, and Writing
At SDTC HQ, we’re fairly big Tabatha Southey fans. We still read, share, and like her work thanks to her monthly comics in the Globe and Mail, her children’s book, her long-gone but never forgotten column at Elle Canada, and her amazing Twitter. We emailed the columnist for career and life advice, a peek into Tabatha’s day, and some comments on the most subversive thing a woman can do.
SDTC: To start us off, can we get some background info—where did you grow up and go to school? How long have you lived in Toronto?
Southey, Tabatha My parents, who had been living in Canada for ten months, had come from South Africa (my mother) and Zimbabwe (my dad). I was an anchor baby who was frequently transported around the nation and occasionally overseas, but I spent the majority of my childhood in Guelph. When I was sixteen, I relocated to Toronto with the vain aim (as it turned out) of finishing high school over the meagerly attained grade nine level, and (this still surprises me) I ended up working as a columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Tell us a little about your day-to-day work life. What does a typical Monday look like for you?
Since I work very hard until at least Thursday when I file, Mondays are when I complete the tasks that must be completed but that I would rather avoid, such meetings and lunch-related activities. Sometimes later, especially if a story breaks late in the week or is in flux. Up until my column goes to print on Friday, I’m still available for last-minute changes. It bears my name. I’m attentive.
I read a lot—both fiction and nonfiction. Writing is not really exciting. When her young daughter, who is carrying a child by a recently deceased sailor, inquires about childbirth, the mother in the British kitchen sink drama “A Taste of Honey” responds, “Does it hurt, mum?” If I could, I’d say, “It’s mostly just a lot of hard labor” in a Northern accent.
I follow news reports. Since I write humorous columns, the majority of them need a premise and a hook. If I’m lucky, something will work after trying several different concepts. You may make jokes about any topic, but a joke made from a standpoint of actual ignorance will never be humorous. Regardless of how ridiculous the angle I ultimately choose may be, I won’t write on a news issue if I don’t feel like I have a very full understanding of the subject at hand.
What was your first-ever job? How did you get it?
I had a route for paper. I asked for it, so I got it. Following my relocation to Toronto, I frequently held multiple jobs at once. I worked as a babysitter, waiter, retail employee, and occasionally I modeled for hair shows, getting my hair cut for pay. It was simply becoming shorter and shorter.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you start?
For me as a child, reading was almost everything. Because I valued reading so highly, the concept of becoming a writer seemed pretentious to me and occasionally still does. Being raised in a church doesn’t typically lead one to believe they are entitled to be God.
Really, I didn’t start writing until my first child was born when I was about 23 years old. Since getting a haircut doesn’t require much talent, I was able to do that. However, I had failed school miserably as a youngster (starting in kindergarten), and that experience left me with a strong sense of my own ineptitude that has lasted with me to this day.
I never thought I was good at anything before becoming a mother, so when I realized I was good at caring for my child, I started to consider my other options. I’d always been a talker and was around by some terrific talkers, so I started writing down the things I would have previously spoken out loud soon after finding myself all of a sudden single and isolated with a two-year-old and a newborn to ensure my isolation. Then, a woman I met through my child’s nursery school and the woman to whom she introduced me pushed and pressured me into writing professionally, kicking and shoving and apologizing along the way.
I wrote a children’s book based on a recommendation from one of these two women in the hopes that it would guarantee me a quiet, safe spot reading to children on the floors of public libraries for the rest of my life. But when the newly established National Post recruited this same woman, she insisted I write for them. I didn’t think I’d really be allowed in, so to speak, even though I adore newspapers and read three a day in the quiet hours of my retail employment, but I had prepared a little joke-column-pitch and eventually emailed it to her.
The pitch’s premise was that since I had previously been married to an actor, the only thing I was qualified to write was a piece similar to the Toronto Star’s vintage “Dinner Date” column featuring celebrity profiles: If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was go out to dinner, pretend to be interested in your career, and get a recipe. I mentioned that I wanted to start a column called “Drunk With Men.” The National Post accepted my pitch exactly as stated, without any “fucks,” allowed me to observe Weekend Post story sessions, and published all of my work for the following two years. Those meetings served as my J school, and I’m really appreciative.
What’s the best piece of work advice you’ve ever been given?
You should “Ask yourself ‘Is it of use to the reader” or “If you want editors to like you always include a subject line in your email” if you want their approval.
What do you do when you’re not working?
There is always more writing to be done, even after I file. Along with writing, I also read, take Tulip for walks, cook for friends, and swim practically every day. Swimming is so important to my mental health that I consider it to be part of my writing.
Do you have any writing rituals, a place you prefer to work or a power drink you consume on a deadline?
No, it’s not magic; it’s writing.
What advice would you give to women hoping to start a writing career?
Learn one thing before you write anything else. Learn about electronics, books, music, politics, wine, or winemaking. You don’t have to write exclusively on that topic (but strive to be the go-to lady on that topic), and you shouldn’t let that topic define what it means to be a woman. Be ready to confront and refute the idea that the only thing a woman can ever tell a guy about is what it feels like to have a vagina.
This is not to suggest that personal writing cannot be done beautifully, and I think having a vagina is fantastic, but a career centered around having a vagina won’t last, and—contrary to what desperate publishers and click-bait dicks will have you believe—confessing is not groundbreaking for women. The Land of Victimization, which “I’ve been a naughty girl” borders, is also overfarmed (True Confessions magazine had a two million readership in the 1930s).
Be cheerful because that is the most subversive thing a woman can be.
