 |
Dan Dowhal, (pronounced "dowl") writer and digital media producer, was born and raised in Toronto's culturally feisty West Queen West district, and continues to live and work in his old neighbourhood today.
Endowed with a pathologically self-expressive nature, Dan's precocious childhood included writing plays, performing on stage, drawing comics, and being paraded around public speaking competitions. His writing deftly balances left-brain and right-brain attributes, partly explainable by his schooling as an engineer, work as a computer programmer, and then a later return to academia for a journalism degree from Ryerson University. While at Ryerson, Dan's penchant for writing metastasized, and he received the A.O. Tate Award for reporting, and was elected editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Eyeopener. Re-entering the working world, Dan Dowhal had a prolonged stint with IBM in their Toronto Software Lab as a writer, development manager, and research scientist.
Dan is currently a board member of Interactive Ontario, representing the province's games, eLearning, mobile, web, and social media producers, and co-chairs IO's eLearning Committee. With the turn of the millennium Dan finally stopped trying to fight the voices in his head and embraced a conversion to fiction. His first novel, Skyfisher, published by Blue Butterfly Books debuted on Apple iBooks in August 2010. Dan was the first Canadian author to be featured as an iBooks exclusive before the hardcopy book became available in bookstores and other online venues. Flam Grub, his second book, came out in June 2011. Away from the keyboard, Dan enjoys chasing balls, pucks, and flying discs. He is also learning to fly airplanes and lay stones. Whenever possible, he retreats north to his cabin on the outskirts of Algonquin Park, where he likes to walk in the woods and talk to trees. Trees are such good listeners.
Photos by David Leadbitter Photography.
|
Then, in the Nineties, Dan and his two brothers founded The Learning Edge Corp.,