Darren Dash is better known as Darren Shan, under which name he has sold over 25 million books worldwide, mainly in the YA market. While Darren is still in love with the world of YA and as active on that front as ever, he is now also exploring the darker world of the night with his adult works, as Darren Dash.
Darren's real name is Darren O’Shaughnessy. He was born on July 2, 1972, in London, but is Irish (despite the strong Cockney accent that he has never lost) and has spent most of his life in Limerick in Ireland, where he now lives with his wife and son.
Darren went to school in Limerick, then studied Sociology and English at Roehampton University in London. He worked for a cable television company in Limerick for a couple of years, before setting up as a full-time writer at the age of 23. Darren was 17 when he finished his first novel. (It has yet to be published, but hopefully he'll get around to rewriting and editing it into shape for a future Darren Dash release.) For the next several years, sandwiched between university and work, he wrote a book a year, experimenting with different ideas, genres, lengths and styles. When he started writing full-time, his output shot up to 5 to 6 books per year, and although that has dipped in recent years, he has still been an incredibly prolific author, releasing 49 books between February 1999 and December 2016.
All of his early books were adult-oriented, and his initial breakthrough was with an adult book, in February 1999, called "Ayuamarca" (later republished as "Procession of the Dead" under the Darren Shan banner), the first of a trilogy of books known as "The City". That was followed by "Hell's Horizon" in February 2000. Then, several years later, when the first two were re-edited and re-released, he published the third book, "City of the Snakes". All of these came out under the Darren Shan name, as did a one-off thriller with supernatural elements called "Lady Of The Shades." But Darren never felt comfortable releasing his adult work under the same name as his YA work, and decided to create a new pseudonym for his more mature novels in 2014 -- which led to the birth of Darren Dash.
A big film buff, with a collection of nearly five thousand movies on DVD, Darren also reads lots of books and comics, and likes to study and collect original artwork, especially comic art, modern art, and sculptures. Other interests include long walks, watching football (he’s a Tottenham Hotspur and Ireland fan), listening to pop and rock music, theatre, worldwide travel, sampling the delights of both gourmet cuisine and finger-licking junk food, and dreaming up new ways to disturb and entertain his readers!
