Mark Leichliter is the author of the crime fiction novel The Other Side. He has been publishing fiction, essays, and poetry in literary magazines and anthologies since 1991, including 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, among others. Writing as Mark Hummel, he is the author of the novels Man, Underground; In the Chameleon’s Shadow and the short story collection Lost and Found.
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 writers’ series. He is the founding and managing editor of the nonfiction literary magazine bioStories. After nearly two decades on the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado, Mark taught in an International Baccalaureate curriculum at Journeys School of Teton Science Schools. He continues to serve on the resident faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, often teaches workshops and courses on memoir and fiction writing, and offers editing and writing coaching 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 writes from his home in Montana’s Flathead Valley. When not working, he and his wife can usually be found on the trails of Northwestern Montana or travelling around the world. Mark is an avid, if slow, trail runner, an aspiring photographer, and an amateur woodworker.