He lives in Northern Ireland beside a big mountain, and works in the civil service.

Achievements to date include winning the 2002 Downtown Radio/Eason Annual Short Story Competition for his humorous children’s tale ‘Fussy Felicity & Grotty Griselda’. In addition he has also published poetry in Country Life magazine as well as children’s fiction on e-publishing site nospine.com, which includes a self narrated, multimedia Rom book entitled ‘The Lion Tamer’s Little Secret’.

Derek’s work has been regarded as so good that children surfing the Internet at Belfast Central Library will soon be able to access his work via the libraries' ‘Gateway’ computer network.

A recent encouragement came when a former Bloomsbury publisher, who first noticed the talents of Harry Potter author J.K Rowling, praised his writing. He described ‘The Lion Tamer’s Little Secret’ as well-written and humorous but stated that at present he wasn’t really publishing for this age range.

Derek has been writing stories since Primary/Junior School when his teacher Mrs Douglas used to give him time aside from main lessons to write adventure stories. Nowadays he attends libraries together with others from his local children’s writers group to read his work to kids who have dropped in after school.

In addition to writing he has drawn cartoons from an early age and now draws on this experience to illustrate his own children’s stories.

Derek plans to write loads more funny, pacy children’s books and is always conjuring up plots and characters for new stories. His favourite children’s authors are Roald Dahl, Eoin Colfer, and Paul Stewart for the marvellous ‘Edge Chronicles’.