Works
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Mark's first novel, Stevenson's Treasure (Fireship Press, 2014), is set in 1879 when Robert Louis Stevenson embarked on one of the most romantic, ill-advised but wildly successful quests a literary figure has ever made. Young, unknown, and in failing health, he journeyed six-thousand arduous miles from Scotland to California to romance an American artist, Fanny Osbourne, despite the fact that she was already married (unhappily), had children, and was ten years older. And yet, from their first meeting, he knew she was the only woman for him. The yearlong trip across the Atlantic ocean and the American continent almost kills him -- but inspires him to write his first international bestseller, Treasure Island.
Currently Mark is finishing a novel about the turn-of-the-20th-century writer and adventurer Jack London, the origins of his extreme risk-taking, and the only woman who had a sense of how to save him from himself, Charmian Kittredge. Jack's meteoric rise is characteristic of the way he does everything -- at full speed with no regard to life or limb. Perfectly suited to appeal to the public of the time, but not to living a long lifespan, and leaving victims in his sometimes lovable wake....
Mark's award-winning screenplay and novel-in-progress, TAMING JUDITH SHAKESPEARE, begins when the playwright, on his deathbed, cuts his youngest daughter out his will and gives his vast wealth to her older sister. The story imagines that Judith has a hidden satchel of his private papers and gets a chance to find out why he disinherited her. The stakes couldn't be higher: her husband has been charged with the murder of Judith's housemaid and friend. What she learns from the pages could prove his innocence and save him from the hangman -- except Judith cannot read....
WATCH A VIDEO RECORDING of Mark giving a talk at the San Francisco library about his research and writing methods for historical fiction by clicking THIS LINK.
HEAR A PODCAST of Mark’s discussion of “Stevenson’s Treasure” in a Capital Public Radio interview with host Beth Ruyak by clicking THIS LINK.