It was my privilege to go to Dargan Ware’s book signing in Hoover this past weekend. He was launching his book, “The Legend of Colgan Toomey.” Because Ware is a member of Pell City’s Writers Anonymous group, I already knew some things about him, but I was delighted to learn more.

Dargan Ware was born in Brevard, North Carolina, where his father was a biologist with the National Park Service. Because of his father’s job, Ware grew up in some interesting and isolated places like Kennicott, Alaska, and Hebronville, Utah. He went to high school and college in Arkansas.

After graduating from college, he had a variety of jobs from working at Walmart to being a roadie/driver/songwriter for a punk-grass band called the Ultraviolet Catastrophe. Eventually, he settled on working as a long-distance truck driver, which he continued to do until the economy crashed.

That’s when he decided to go to law school, and he chose the “highest-ranking school that gave him a scholarship.” That was our own University of Alabama. After law school, Ware stayed here in Alabama. He and his wife Kristi and their triplets live in Hoover, and he is currently a consumer protection lawyer at a Birmingham firm.

Ware started writing his book while he was in law school. He said, “It was originally just a way to cool my brain from all the stress of law.” Then he added, “Part of the early impetus for writing the book was understanding/describing this new place I had come to live in.” Once he had graduated and was working, he had to discipline himself to get up early and write at least 250 words each morning before going to work.

“The book is about small town Alabama, and the Salvadoran Civil War, and Texas music, and several other things,” Ware summarized. “What it’s really about though, is how we never really know anyone, and how everyone that we come in contact with has a slightly different picture of us.”

The book is told by several different narrators, often in a vignette-type fashion.

Ware loves Writers Anonymous and is a regular and devoted member. He told me about the inspiration he gets from hearing other writers, and added, “Just as important has been the relationships that I have developed and the ways that members of WA have supported me in my writing and beyond.”

When I asked him to tell me something interesting about himself, not related to writing, he quipped, “There aren’t a lot of truck-driver turned lawyers raising triplets!” He’s right, but he also told me he’s a better than average cook.

“The Legend of Colgan Toomey” is available on Amazon. If you’d like to contact Dargan Ware or learn more about him, you can follow him on twitter @manerware or Facebook, or you can email authordarganware@gmail.com.