My full name is Mark Kevin Gilbert.
I was born at 6:07 PM on November 17, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia.

I attended and graduated:
Kindergarten at Woodlawn Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia.
Stoneview Elementary and Lithonia High School in Lithonia, Georgia (1979).

I dropped out of college after becoming disillusioned by the practice of psychology, which I had assumed would be my major.

I enlisted in the US Navy in 1980 and served in electronic cryptology through 1986.

I was stationed in:
San Diego, California (technical school)
Pensacola, Florida (technical school)
Biloxi, Mississippi (technical school)
Sonoma, California (where I met and married my wife, Tami)
Adak, Alaska (in the Aleutian Islands)

I enjoy writing, reading, hanging out with my wife and our 4 dogs and 2 cats, looking at other people's junk at antique fairs, and wasting time playing with my computer(s).

I enjoy a pretty wide range of music. Some of my favorites are: The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bach, Pink Floyd, Beethoven, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc. I'm beginning to like some of the newer stuff by Red-Hot Chili Peppers, Tool, and Alice in Chains, etc.

I like Yergecheffe (Ethiopian) coffee, good dark chocolate, and dried Turkish figs.

I like to watch documentaries on TV; mostly about ancient civilizations and wars. That sort of thing.

I enjoy writing (and receiving) letters and e-mails, but I don't care to get into chats with strangers using false names, etc. I don't like getting put on-hold by people on their private telephones. I think people need to apply standard accepted rules of etiquette to new communication technology.

Some of my favorite authors are:
Dickens, Steinbeck, Marquez, Hugo, Hawthorne, etc.
I like Peter Straub, Robert McCammon, and Stephen King as well.
I wish Edgar Allan Poe had written a few novels, anyway.

I enjoy travelling, though I haven't been able to afford much as yet.

For the last few years I've tried to concentrate on writing longer fiction (novels). I hold out the (unlikely) possibility that one day if I work hard at it and don't quit, that I may get better at it and may even accidentally write something really good.

It's no secret that part of my reason for working on this web-site is to get exposure to my work. I don't write purely for self-edification. I want my work to be read.

I hope it's too early for me to write my autobiography, so I'll leave this for now…

 

Thanks for bearing with me,

mkgilbert