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Chuck Derry
Dayton, OH
Photos - 1969 & 2001
Information - 1999
High School Activities - Junior Council on World Affairs, Dramatics Club (Vice President), School Plays, Thespians, French Club (Treasurer), Yearbook Staff (Activities Editor, Editor-in-Chief), Orphean Staff, P.A. Crew (Captain), National Honor Society, International Club, Voted #2 "Best Actor", #1 "Smartest", and #2 "Most Likely to Succeed"
Occupation: Wright State University College Professor/Writer
Spouse: Tom Kohn
Five years ago, my partner, Tom, was hit by a car while training for the Gay Games. He underwent an emergency brain surgery and about 4 other surgeries, as well as a variety of physical therapy and cognitive therapy. Incredibly, those who were racing bikes with him abandoned him at the accident scene. Thankfully, Tom is fully recovered now; and we have just celebrated our 19th (non-legal, of course) anniversary.
Life is good, and we are both very happy; though a traumatic experience such as the one we went through continues to affect us. The cliche about knowing who your friends are is so true. We learned much about the darkness of the soul, but much too about human generosity and love. Building on part of this experience, I created a series of photographs with text which dealt with our relationship, the accident, and many of the other social pressures that come to bear upon gay relationships. The photo series, "Snapshots: We Are Here", has been exhibited at a variety of venues across Ohio and, incidentally, won me a variety of grants and other artistic opportunities.
My primary job continues to be teaching filmmaking and film history at Wright State University. My primary interests continue to be focused on my creative work. I've been publishing lots of fiction lately. One story, "Croquet", about growing up in Maple Heights, was recently published in the Portland Review Literary Journal. (Remember Groner Drug or the basketball hoops at Raymond School or the "bogeyman" who lived in its woods?)
Another story, "Ten Memories of My Mother, in the Order I Think of Them", was published in the Chattahoochee Review and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. It deals, too, with suburban Maple Heights life. A play version of this same story was just performed weeks ago in Baltimore by the Baltimore Theatre Project and was well-reviewed by the Baltimore Sun. Darker stories have appeared in Contra/Diction: New Queer Male Fiction and Reclaiming the Heartland, both anthologies of new fiction. In the fall, I will be spending 3 months at an artists' colony in Sausalito - just over the Golden Gate Bridge on a 13,000 acre nature preserve. I'm very much looking forward to this and am hoping to get a lot of writing done.
And what else? Tom and I stay active. We love ethnic food: Indian food every Friday, Thai whenever we can. I remain an avid tennis player, and play racquetball several times a week - which I love. We both work out at the local Y regularly (have for decades) and have just started taking golf classes. We hope someday to retire part of the year in Palm Springs, which I love; such a spiritual place. We enjoy traveling; Tom won (!) a trip for two to Hawaii, which was great; and we've visited Paris, Nice, Rome, Barcelona, Florence, Milan, and Venice. Our year-old yellow Lab, Homer, is a handful; and we have a small circle of very good, high quality friends. What more can we ask for?
I try to stay in touch with Tom Zamostny and Kathy Patz (they have great kids!) and Pat Bellomo and have recently connected a bit with Sherrie Kozak, but most high school friends have fallen away; a natural progression of life, I suppose. I've wondered over the years how Judy Auping was doing - hi, Judy, if you see this!
Life can be beautiful, I think, and I enjoy the sheer experience of it so much more than I did as a stupid, oblivious, high school kid. I particularly try to stay open to unexpected experiences and to other people - certainly more so than the scrawny 102-pounder some of you once knew who barely seems to me to be me any more at all. If others have and great insights or tips, I'd love to hear them!
For a description of Chuck's book, The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, go to www.mcfarlandpub.com and then click on "Search Our Books" and type in "Derry" for the author's last name.
The following press release from Wright State University is dated May 9, 2002:
Charles Derry, Ph.D., professor of theatre arts and coordinator of the motion pictures program at Wright State University, is this year's recipient of the Trustees' Award for Faculty Excellence. The award will be presented during Wright State's spring commencement ceremonies on Saturday, June 8.
"Dr. Derry is one of the most exceptional educators I have known," said W. Stuart McDowell, Ph.D., chair and artistic director of Wright State's Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures. "Students who have encountered Dr. Derry in the classroom repeatedly single him out as one of the most dynamic and effective teachers they have ever known."
A member of the Wright State faculty since 1978, Derry teaches classes in film history and criticism, screenwriting and directing. The motion pictures program has grown from two faculty members and 20 majors in 1978 to six faculty and staff and more than 100 majors today. Alumni of the program have won Emmy and Golden Globe awards and have been honored by the national Sundance Festival. The program has twice received Program Excellence Awards from the Ohio Board of Regents. Portugal's Figueira da Foz film festival presented WSU with an international Jury Prize citation and presented an entire festival sidebar of Wright State films.
Derry is the author of several books on film, including the recently republished The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock. Other books include Dark Dreams: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film and The Film Book Bibliography 1940-1975. Derry has published fiction in Reclaiming the Heartland, The Chiron Review, The Portland Literary Review, Writers ForumContra/Dictions. Derry has also written articles on French film, popular culture, women's studies and American filmmakers.
A prose version of Derry's Ten Memories of my Mother, in the Order I Think of Them was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The theatrical version of the same work was a finalist for the Heideman Award and was produced in New York City and Los Angeles.
Derry's film, Cerebral Accident, an experimental narrative about a man forced to deal with the impending death of his father from a stroke, was screened in international festivals. Another film, Joan Crawford Died for Your Sins, was screen regionally on PBS television stations. In January, Derry directed The Laramie Project, which examines homophobia and violence, for the WSU Festival Theatre stage.
"Dr. Derry's staging of The Laramie Project has been called one of the most artistically successful plays in recent memory," said McDowell. "For the production, Dr. Derry conceived of a multi-media presentation that included massive use of film, video and slide projections, and he cast eight actors to play over 40 roles. This was one of the finest examples of creative scholarship I have seen."
The Ohio Arts Council awarded Derry fellowship awards for criticism in 1998 and for fiction in 1994 and 2001. He also completed a three-month awarded residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, Calif., where he worked alongside a variety of international writers and artists.
Derry earned his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in film from Northwestern University. He earned his master's degree in cinema from the University of Southern California.
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