Author's Bio

Darren is an Ottawa-based writer who has learned to leverage the power of good storytelling in his career as a management consultant and trainer. This skill has been further honed through his authoring of various pieces that have appeared in trade journals over the years which needed to be 'spiced up' given the arguably dry and technical subject matter on which they were based.

Over a 25-year career, he has also had the opportunity to experience firsthand a number of places where a deep emotional attachment to the past can be felt. Whether in mounds of toys laid out for a young Scottish victim of the Black Plague, the tunnels of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan that bear witness to the struggles of early Chinese labourers, or the battlefield of Vimy Ridge, such places strike a chord that seems to amplify through time like sound through a concrete wall.

Several years ago, Darren set out in search of local stories to get a sense of what it was like during Ottawa's earliest years; he discovered how little remains of the anonymous people, mostly recent immigrants, who were among the town's first inhabitants. An interest in tapping into these voices was the motivation for Whispers in Stone, a collection of short stories which focuses on the lives and challenges of the labourers and their families at a time when the Rideau Canal was first being built.

His latest book, and first novel, LowerTown, takes on the period of the post-canal construction, and the oft-misunderstood Shiner War, from the perspective of ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.

Darren is active on local historical initiatives, including the establishment of the Rideau Canal Workers' Memorial, which will be unveiled in 2014.