It is with a heavy heart and great sadness to inform you that Pitch Wars lost one of its own last night. Our adult mentor, Derek Chivers, passed away last night. He leaves behind a wife and two small daughters. If you can help his family out, a friend of his has started a GoFundMe page. Any amount is appreciated.

We will miss you Derek and you’ll always be in hearts.

Here is the link to the GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/chiverfamily

To know more about Derek, here’s his bio from his mentor page …

DEREK CHIVERS was born and raised on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. He spent a wild childhood wandering through woods where winter winds drifted snow deeper than he was tall, and the midnight sun stretched summer days and stories to extremes. Now he shares his life’s adventures with his wife and daughters; he can still trek through tracts of trees tucked between snowcapped summits, or choose to lose himself instead between the covers of his favorite authors’ stories.

An alumnus of the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Derek received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, wrote opinion for the campus newspaper The Northern Light, and was published several times in the annual undergraduate fiction showcase Understory. He is a founding member of Anchorage writing collective The Life Partners, and an infrequent contributor to their Tumblr, which features fresh fiction Mondays and Wednesdays. Derek’s creative nonfiction “Gunshots on Dogfish” took top prize in a statewide writing competition and was published in F Magazine. He is represented by Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary Agency.