Mark Hummel’s award-winning dark, comic novel Man, Underground is his newest title. He is the author of the novel In the Chameleon’s Shadow and the short story collection Lost and Found. He has been publishing fiction, essays, and poetry in literary magazines and anthologies since 1991. His work has appeared, among many other places, in the pages of The Arlington Literary Journal, The Bloomsbury Review, Dogwood, Fugue, Per Contra, Talking River Review, Weber: the Contemporary West, and Zone 3. Writing as Mark Leichliter, he is the author of the crime novel The Other Side.

Mark has taught fiction and essay writing at colleges and universities for much of his career, where he also administrated writing programs, directed a writers’ conference, and ran a visiting writer’s series. He is the founding and managing editor of the nonfiction literary magazine bioStories. He taught in an International Baccalaureate curriculum at Journeys School of the Teton Science Schools. He continues to serve on the resident faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference and offers writing coaching and editing through his firm theWORDwright. He is an experienced ghostwriter, guiding several books a year to publication, helping CEOs, coaches, and thought leaders bring their ideas to print.

Mark grew up in Wyoming and much of his work is influenced by the wildness and beauty of the Mountain West. While completing a graduate degree in English, he studied with prize-winning authors John Edgar Wideman, Robert Roripaugh, and Donald Murray. He now writes from his home in the village of Bigfork, Montana, which is situated on the North shore of Flathead Lake. When not working, he and his wife can usually be found on the trails and lakes of Northwestern Montana, or travelling around the world.

Learn more about Mark’s work through these interviews and recordings:

“In Conversation with novelist Ginger Pinholster” at Malaprops Book Store, Asheville, NC

Advice to Writers, Hazel’s Book Tours

shepherd.com is an alternative book lovers guide website, one that hopes to recreate the experience of browsing a favorite local bookstore by creating curated reading lists and introducing readers to new writers. Check it out. And have a gander at a list of five recommended books I created on the theme of “unexpected friendships and unlikely pairings” in the spirit of Man, Underground.