Remembering Dean Cooke

We at CookeMcDermid are devastated by the passing of our agency’s founder, trusted colleague and dear friend Dean Cooke.

Dean was a consummate books person who devoted over forty years of his life to publishing. He knew every aspect of the business, starting in a warehouse and working his way up through different departments at Doubleday and Lester & Orpen Dennys, and later becoming Publisher of Bantam Seal. He began his agency work at Livingston Cooke in 1992, which merged with The Harding Agency and later The McDermid Agency to become CookeMcDermid in 2017.

As an agent, Dean represented many best-selling and award-winning authors, including John Irving, Robert Munsch, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Anna Olson, and many others whose books have won national and international awards.

John Irving wrote, “My longest novel, The Last Chairlift, is dedicated to Dean, but this doesn’t express the extent of my dedication to him. Dean was more than my literary agent, and a first reader of my novels in manuscript. He’s been my best friend in Canada for forty years. I’m going to miss him for the rest of my life.”

Dean was both passionate about the business of books and pragmatic about its challenges, with a gift for thinking many years into the future. He lived the adage that publishing is a business of relationships, and he nurtured them. In the course of over two decades of teaching at the Banff Centre for the Arts and later Simon Fraser University’s publishing programme, he mentored many of the brightest minds now running the business today. Through his endless spirit of generosity, he helped countless people find their way in their careers and did so behind the scenes and without fanfare. In 2014 he received the prestigious Ivy Award in recognition of his significant contributions to Canadian publishing.

Even after he sold his stake in the agency in 2021, Dean remained to us a trusted advisor, and we will continue to be guided by the principles he enshrined in our company’s culture. We will miss his wit and keen intelligence, his personal grace and sartorial elegance, his mean martinis and his infectious laugh. He was a singular, wonderful man, and we are grateful for his time with us.

Our heartfelt condolences are with his devoted husband, Jaimie, his sister Robbie, his extended family and the expansive network of friends who loved him.

Rest in peace, Captain.