Mark Swain

Mark Swain was born in Singapore in 1958, where his father was stationed in the RAF. He has lived in many countries, and as a young man found it hard to break the habit of a nomadic life.

With a low boredom threshold, Mark has had dozens of jobs and several careers. This provides him with endless source material for short stories.

Studying Graphic Design at Hastings College of Art at 16, he ran off and joined the Army in search of adventure. Later he found himself travelling the world on the QE2 as a silver-service waiter and going to the Falklands war. Training as a TEFL teacher took him to Tokyo in 1984, where he met his wife Lorna. In 2008 Mark took a year out from his Risk Management business, to cycle 10,000-miles from Ireland to Japan with his son, Sam. This life-changing decision resulted in them writing Long Road Hard Lessons, which became an Amazon bestseller.

Mark and his wife Lorna have three grown-up children and live mainly in Canterbury, Kent. His life is driven by passion, although he will do anything to avoid having to dance or empty a kitchen bin. When asked about his ambitions, desires, or his sense of right and wrong, he says, “I trust in instinct. I simply grow towards the light.”

Mark especially enjoys the Short Story form, admiring American short story writers such as Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan and Richard Ford as well as classic short story writers Franz Kafka and Anton Chekov. He is also a great admirer of George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Norman Maclean, Albert Camus, Jeanette Winterson and the contemporary travel writer Jonathan Raban.

Two collections of Mark's own short stories - including the award winning story 'Special Treatment' - have been released by his UK publisher, Tinderbox Publishing along with the bestselling "Long Road, Hard Lessons" a non-fiction book with photographs and maps about the 10,000-mile life-changing cycle journey he made with his teenage son from Ireland to Japan. A new non-fiction book of short travel-related stories has recently been released, entitled 'People I've Met On The Road'.

Mark is at home in England, but is constantly drawn back to Asia, Morocco, and to Dingle in Ireland.