DJ Corchin is an author and illustrator who grew up outside of Chicago, IL. He attended DePaul University and received his Bachelors of Music Education.

 

After graduating, he was cast as a feature performer in the Tony and Emmy Award-Winning Broadway show, “BLAST” to play multiple instruments including riding a unicycle while playing the trombone. 

 

It was talking to kids as part of the show’s educational promotional group and becoming a high school band director that he gathered stories from all over the country which evolved into The Band Nerds Book Series. 

 

DJ, with a life-long love of kid lit, began writing and self-publishing picture books after an encounter with writer, John Hughes who taught him he was a writer the moment he put pen to paper. 

 

In 2019, Sourcebooks acquired DJ’s entire self-published library. The deal was featured in Publishers Weekly. His debut picture book with Sourcebooks, A Thousand NO’s, illustrated by Dan Dougherty launched to wonderful reviews and won the Eric Hoffer Award Winner for Best Children’s Book. Since then Sourcebooks has published The I Feel... Children’s Series, The Band Nerds Book Series, Do You Speak Fish?, and If You See A Unicorn, It Is Not Yours To Keep with many more to come. 

 

He writes and draws from his home in Oak Park, IL where he lives with family.