It was a cold winter day on February 17th, 2000. Suddenly, at 2:22 p.m., the world got a little better. Derek was born. 

Derek enjoys science fiction and dystopian TV shows, for example, The Walking Dead. This impacted his writing as he wrote a story about an apocalyptic world. Derek has had a couple of life experiences throughout his life. One time in sixth grade, he was bullied a bit and that's when he began writing. He wrote a story about an overwhelmed teenager who had to go through life. Over the years, that story changed greatly. But Derek's life had changed as well. Over the years Derek changed a lot of what he had to say and what he thought.

Derek has had quite a few major beliefs in life. One of the biggest would be that we must treat everyone with respect and to be everyone's friend. He strives to be everyone's friend and to be nice to everyone and listen to anyone. He also believes that anyone can redeemed, no matter what they did, if they are truly sorry, they should be forgiven. Lastly, he believes anyone should be accepted. There should be no one not accepted for not being something they're not. These beliefs impact his writing in numerous ways. Some of his writing is about making the world better. He wrote a short story about an Iraq veteran who tries to make the world better and advocating for peace, all the while suffering with PTSD.

Derek read many books on his own time since the beginning of middle school, which helped encourage him to write his own stories.
Derek has wrote many stories over the years. Derek's author's voice happens to be really, quite simple. Two words. Twist endings. Many of his stories have twist endings. Derek plans on writing more pieces and other short stories this year in his Creative Writing class, with many more twist endings.