Jesteśmy społecznością, która kocha książki

Although novelist Mark Dunn considers himself “an inveterate New Yorker,” he’s lost none of his soft Tennessee accent during the 15 years he has lived and worked in the Big Apple. The author, who got his start writing plays, not novels, has been writing since he was a child in Memphis, where he grew up just a block from Graceland. “So I do have Elvis stories,” he says.
After the surprise popularity of last year’s Ella Minnow Pea, his critically acclaimed and remarkably clever debut novel about an island whose residents must contend with a shrinking alphabet, Dunn decided he needed “to shift some major gears in terms of what I want to spend the rest of my life writing.” During a phone call on a muggy morning to the small West Village apartment he shares with his wife, he explains, “I’m on a mission that every new novel I write is going to bend or tweak narrative as much as I can. I think writers need to be a little more daring. There are a lot of ways to tell stories and construct narratives that writers shy away from because they want to be either traditional or safe. I decided that’s not going to be my mission.” Mark Dunn is the author of several books and more than thirty full-length plays, a dozen of which have been published in acting edition. Mark has received over 200 productions of his work for the stage throughout the world, with translations of his plays into French, Italian, Dutch and Hungarian. His play North Fork (later retitled Cabin Fever: A Texas Tragicomedy when it was picked up for publication by Samuel French) premiered at the New Jersey Repertory Company (NJRC) in 1999 and has since gone on to receive numerous productions throughout the U.S. Mark is co-author with NJRC composer-in-residence Merek Royce Press of Octet: A Concert Play, which received its world premiere at NJRC in 2000. Two of his plays, Helen’s Most Favorite Day and Dix Tableaux, have gone on to publication and national licensing by Samuel French. His novels include the award-winning Ella Minnow Pea, Welcome to Higby, Ibid, the children’s novel The Calamitous Adventures of Rodney and Wayne, Under the Harrow and Feral Park. Mark teaches creative writing and leads playwriting seminars around the country, in addition to serving as Vice President of the non-profit PULA (People United for Libraries in Africa),which he founded with his wife, Mary, in 2002.