Mark has been a writer since he graduated in from NYU School of the Arts in 1980. After over a decade in Manhattan, he moved to California to pursue screenwriting and take care of his brother, who died of AIDS in 1991. Gay and HIV+ himself, Mark self-medicated through the worst of the plague years with crystal meth, which led to a conviction for drug-dealing in 2004 and nine months in prison. Mark emerged into a life of recovery and activism, writing hundreds of essays for the Huffington Post and his personal blog, The Trash Whisperer, based on his hobby of keeping his Hollywood neighborhood free of litter. In 2011 he entered the Graduate Humanities program in Mount St. Mary’s University, obtaining a Master’s Degree with a specialization in Creative Writing in 2013. In 2017 he published "Ink from the Pen: A Prison Memoir" and a volume of poetry, "Strata.Various"