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Derek McCormack

I first saw Derek at a Blood & Aphorisms (now defunct literary journal) launch at Clinton’s Tavern on Bloor Street way back in the dark, dirty ‘90s.

So going purely on memory, I think he read a piece about working at a farm transformed into a Halloween harvest setting. Hay rides through various staged hauntings. That kind of thing. And this is just my skeletal remembering.

The audience really, really liked him; whistles, cheers, more like attending a hockey game than a literary reading.

The first published work of his I came across was Radio Story in the tenth edition of Blood &Aphorisms. It was an inkling of what was to come in terms of his turning good ole Hank Williams and his vertebrae into a xylophone/keyboard for cranking out startling imagery.

Derek’s very supportive of other writers, attending their book launches and readings, something that I fail miserably at. Well-liked and respected too within the hardcore writing community and with his fashion pieces in the National Post’s weekend edition, he’s found a wider audience for the distinctive rhythm of his sentences.

And as I’ve told him more than once, I found his Wish Book to be the perfect post-McLuhan book (if there is such a thing), a wonderful blending of word and image.

Born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, Derek presently lives in Toronto.

Works

Dark Rides (1996)
Wild Mouse (with Chris Chambers, 1998)
Halloween Suite (1998)
Wish Book (1999)
Western Suit (2001)
The Haunted Hillbilly (2003)
Grab Bag (2004)
Christmas Days (2005)
The Show That Smells (2008)