Biography

Mark West was born in Kettering, Northants in 1969 and grew up in nearby Rothwell, where he now lives with his wife Alison and their son Matthew (who's more often than not referred to as Dude).

Editing "The Loved One" in
Germany, December 1992

Mark grew up reading The Three Investigators, discovered horror in the early 80s with Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot and has been an enthusiastic fan of the genre ever since.  He began writing stories (about Detective West, when he wasn’t trying to expand the Star Wars universe) in junior school and never really stopped.  He wrote his first novel (a thriller he's since called 'a brave failure') in 1991 and followed it with two contemporary dramas - The Loved One in 1992 and Alice in 1994, the latter of which was rejected by several major publishers.

Mark's work began to appear in print in the UK horror small press in 1998 and, since then, he's seen publication of over one hundred short stories, two collections, two novels, a novelette, a chapbook and four novellas (one of which was nominated for a British Fantasy Society Award).

In 2022, The Book Folks began to publish Mark's mainstream thrillers novel. The first of these, Don't Go Back was published in February 2022 and followed by Only Watching You (March 2022), The Hunter's Quarry (July 2022) and Still Waters Run (November 2022). More thrillers are forthcoming.

Away from writing, he reads widely across genres, watches films, enjoys getting lost in bookshops and takes a lot of photographs. Following a heart attack in 2014, he lost a lot of weight and embarked on a fitness regime that sees him walking as much as possible. He is also - the benefit of having a young son - a crack shot with a Nerf gun!

Mark is a member of the The Crime Writers Association, The Northampton SF Writers Group, The Inner Circle, The Crusty Exterior (which he co-founded), The Fireball Club and The Terror Scribes.

You can contact Mark through his Facebook page - MarkWestWrites - and he can also be found on Twitter as @MarkEWest

In Covent Garden, with Dude, August 2015