WIN MCCORMACK
Featured on June 16, 2001
McCormack was an honors graduate of Harvard College and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. He was editor of the New Oregon Publishers books Profiles of Oregon, Great Moments in Oregon History, and The Rajneesh Files.
Win McCormack is a major publisher in Oregon and the president of McCormack Communications. His latest publishing endeavor was a 1999 foray into creative writing when he launched Tin House Press and produced the first issue of Tin House literary journal, a serial named for the tin-covered Victorian home in Portland that acts as the journal’s West Coast headquarters. Tin House is a very upscale, intelligent, bi-coastal, book-size publication with offices in Manhattan and Northeast Portland. It publishes–as stated on the cover–Fiction, Poetry, Pilgrimages, Profiles, Lost Books, Food and other Obsessions. McCormack serves as the publication's editor-in-chief and publisher.
"This was a dream I had for many years, but it always seemed too impractical an undertaking," McCormack said. "I was sort of getting into my 50s and realized if I was going to do it, I should do it now." The idea of the upscale, well-designed quarterly, was to pay its writers well, present funky features, and not be too trendy.
McCormack’s own writings go back to his arrival in Portland from New York City when he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. He is also an honors graduate of Harvard College.
He has been investing in magazines since the 1960s when he helped create Mother Jones. He has been treasurer of Oregon Business Magazine since 1984, and is president of two publishing companies: New Oregon Publishers, and McCormack Communications. He is an official of the Democratic Party of Oregon, and has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon and the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.
McCormack's feature article, "Deconstructing the Election," appeared in the March 26, 2001 issue of The Nation.