Mark's debut novel, Outer Sunset (University of Iowa Press), called "insightful and bittersweet — a terrific novel" by the San Francisco Chronicle and "beautiful and touching" by Foreword, was listed by Alta Journal in May 2023 as a "book to watch." The novel grew over 30 years out of a Chicago Tribune/Nelson Algren Award winning story entitled "The First Light of Evening."
Mark grew up in Western Massachusetts and New York's "North Country," earned a BA from St. John's College in Annapolis, and moved to San Francisco in 1987, where he earned an MFA at SF State while working in public service-facing communications (including a great gig with the California Council for the Humanities). He lives with his wife and kids in San Francisco, where he's completing work on a second novel. (Photo: India Blaisdell)