Mark was born in London and moved to Hebden Bridge in 1992, where he now lives with his family. His Young Adult novel, THE IMPOSSIBLE, won a Northern Writers Award in 2015 and was published by Quercus in 2017. It was recently optioned for TV. The sequel, THE IMPOSSIBLE: ON THE RUN, appeared in 2018.

He had three novels published by Bloomsbury in his twenties. A CHINESE SUMMER in 1988, THE ALCHEMIST in 1990 and THE FEATHER REPORT in 1992. A CHINESE SUMMER was published in America, Denmark and Holland.

TENDER – a collection of connected short stories – and THE LAST WORD were published by Salt in 2009 and 2011. THE LAST WORD was shortlisted for The Portico Prize.

His short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and on Radio 4, and have been shortlisted for the Whitbread Young Writers’, Bristol and Bridport Prizes. One of them was made into a short film in Brazil, and apparently inspired an entire TV series there.

Mark is an Exec Producer and Writer on the Impossible option. He has been writing for TV for 25 years – including episodes of EastEnders, The Bill, Peak Practice, Jamie Johnson and Emmerdale. He wrote the screenplay for Before Dawn, which won the Best Screenplay award at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival. He has also had three radio plays broadcast.

He has run writing workshops at Arvon, in universities and schools, at Reading Prison and in Broadmoor secure hospital. He has given readings at festivals around the country, including Edinburgh and Cheltenham. He is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and is a frequent visitor to schools, giving talks and readings and running workshops.