Several years ago, Mark started writing on a camping trip with Jesse, his fourteen year old son. Watching Jess scamper over the high peaks of the Adirondacks, Mark tried to remember his lost fourteenth year, and took some notes. Two years and 300 pages later, he reclaimed his fourteenth year and became addicted to writing.
He has published stories in several literary magazines, including Whetstone (JP McGrath Memorial Award), Bucks County Writer, Sensations, and the Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts. He is a recipient of Pennsylvania Council of the Arts fellowships for 2003 and 2009, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Mark has worked in the Latino immigrant community for many years, where he daily hears remarkable stories that need to be heard. He is co-editor of Espejos y Ventanas / Mirrors and Windows, Oral Histories of Mexican Farmworkers and Their Families, which is published in Spanish and English by Syracuse University Press. He currently works as co- director of the Open Borders Healing Stories Project, in which immigrants produce audio stories about their lives. These stories are webcast, played on radio, and published in Wild River Review, a zine.
He is a member of Working Writers Group, who support and challenge him to be a better writer.
