That picture makes me look hard-boiled, but I’m really not. I’m a published novelist and essayist and professor (@ Butler University).

My novels are The Next Right Thing and John Wayne: A Novel.

Praise for my writing:

“Everything you could hope for from a novel: The Next Right Thing is suspenseful, hilarious, angry—above all, wildly original. I only wish I’d written it myself.”—Jennifer Egan
 
“Dan Barden’s The Next Right Thing is The Long Goodbye in rehab. It’s fierce and funny and absolutely worthy of its predecessors—like them, Barden’s hard-boiled tale is really an inquiry into male love and grief, and the state of the American heart.”—Jonathan Lethem
 
“The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.”—George Pelecanos

“Randy Chalmers is an American literary hero for our time: a recovering drunk with a big, broken heart and an anger problem. I adore him. In The Next Right Thing, Dan Barden captures exactly the pitiless, irreverent love that keeps drunks sober.” - Michelle Huneven

After happily professing at Butler University for twenty-five years, I still love teaching, particularly my Recovering Writers Workshop, which you can learn about right here.

I have one adult son, upon whom the sun rises and sets. Also, a pain-in-the-ass dog, named Hope, whom I adore completely against my will.