McFadden was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and began writing poetry while still in high school, publishing in literary magazines, corresponding with beat writer Jack Kerouac, and becoming a proofreader for the Hamilton Spectator newspaper.
McFadden served on the editorial board of Coach House Press, and as a contributing editor for SwiftCurrent and Canadian Art Magazine.
He taught at David Thompson University Centre for three years and was a member of the production team of the literary journal Brick.
His work, with its overt humour, reflections on contemporary urban life, and interest in the mistakes of the imagination is influenced by Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and the New York School of the 1950s, as well as the Beat writers of the 1960s such as Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
[1] In 2012, McFadden was diagnosed with logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia, a type of Alzheimer's disease that affects a person's memory of words, and shortly thereafter he became one of the first participants in a study of the effects of aerobic exercise on people already affected by dementia.