Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Wish.
Hi Mark, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The morning after the January 6 insurrection, my wife Elizabeth and I were in Manhattan, and we were taking a walk very early (at dawn or slightly predawn) to avoid contact with people because of Covid, and I was so disturbed by the video I’d seen of the insurrectionists storming and destroying the Capitol that I said to Elizabeth, “What if we published an annual anthology of short stories by writers from all walks of life that were so interesting Americans would read them and enjoy them regardless of where they stood politically? You know, to try to unite this damned country?” And she said, “Let’s do that.”
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The very anger and rancor that was out there in the news on January 6–and is still out there in this country almost every day because of politics–sometimes gets in our way. You know: Authors we reject lash out at us on social media; authors we PUBLISH lash out at us on social media; readers here and there with chips on their shoulders troll us and give us 1-star reviews on Amazon without even writing reasons for doing so. In other words, it appears right now that we could be swallowed alive by the very anger we’re trying to appease. But we’ve kept pressing ahead for going on 5 years now.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I write candid, unafraid fiction that often tells it like it is and satirizes injustice and explores interesting quirks of the human condition. Thanks to this, my fiction has won a Pushcart Prize, been chosen by Salmon Rushdie for inclusion in THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, and–way back in the late nineties, just after I finished writing/revising my first novel in California–been compared favorably to HUCKLEBERRY FINN by a 4-column review in the LOS ANGELES TIMES.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
That’s a tough one. I guess being waved at from a block away by a girl I had a crush on who otherwise never talked to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.coolestamericanstories.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.wisniewski.7/
- Twitter: https://x.com/JustCoolStories
- Other: https://www.markwishbooks.com/
Image Credits
(self)
