Artist Bio

Mark is a writer, a researcher, a photographer and a community worker based in northern NSW, Australia.

In 2011, Mark graduated from a BA in Communications and a BA in International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. The following year, he was employed by the Salvation Army to provide humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers detained in one of Australia’s notorious offshore prisons in the Republic of Nauru. While working in Nauru, he penned his first book, The Undesirables: Inside Nauru (Hardie Grant, 2014), a whistle-blowing account which exposed the inhumane treatment of prisoners on the island. His second book, Nauru Burning: the story behind a riot (Editia, 2016), follows up The Undesirables with an inquiry into the 2013 fire that burned down the prison and the subsequent investigation by authorities on the island into who was responsible.

Once he had returned to Sydney in 2013, Mark began working with Settlement Services International as a case manager for people seeking asylum, assisting clients to settle into the community, access services and find employment and housing. 

Mark worked in community services for five years before becoming a full-time writer in 2017. In that time, he continued to travel and write, publishing articles online and in print for various academic, literary and news publications, as well as researching and writing podcast and radio scripts. In 2015, he spent time in South Asia writing about the Rohingya people, conflicts in Myanmar and post-war Sri Lanka. Two years later, he travelled as a reporter to the Australian-run detention centre in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, commissioned by the Berlin Literature Festival to write a chapter for the anthology, Refugees Worldwide. That same year, he received the Community Alumni Award from the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2018, Mark moved to Mexico for 6 months where he joined the migrant caravan, documenting the lives of the Central American people who walked north to the US border. 

In 2016, Mark conducted an investigation into deportations to Afghanistan with the Edmund Rice Centre. The published report, titled ‘Responsibility to Protect’, paved the way for his third book, The Kabul Peace House (Hardie Grant, 2019), which tells the story of a community of peace activists in Afghanistan. The book was published by Hardie Grant in Australia in June 2019 and the United Kingdom in August 2019. The affiliated photography collection, Imagining Peace: A Portrait of Modern Afghanistan, has been exhibited at the Northern Rivers Community Gallery, the Waverley Library, Sydney, the Clive James Library, Kogarah, and the Wallsend Library, Newcastle.

Since 2016, Mark has been a member of PEN Sydney, an affiliate of PEN International, a worldwide association of writers which defends freedom of expression and campaigns on behalf of writers who have been silenced by persecution or imprisonment. He was president of the Sydney branch for 3 years from 2018 until 2021 and was involved in organising events with Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist, Maria Ressa; legal counsel to Julian Assange, Jennifer Robinson; as well as advocacy campaigns for imprisoned writers such as Yang Hengjun and Kylie Moore-Gilbert. He also established PEN Voices, the first PEN podcast channel globally.

Mark has spoken about his books and moderated events at the Berlin Literature Festival in Germany, the Byron Writers Festival, Brisbane Writers Festival, Sydney Writers Festival and Melbourne Writers Festival. He has also engaged in national tours for each book which included newspaper, television and academic interviews, as well as appearances at rallies. Notably, he appeared in the Eva Orner documentary, Chasing Asylum.

Mark is studying for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology, Sydney. In May 2024, he submitted to examiners his thesis titled, The human rights implications of Australia’s war on people smugglers. He has been teaching as a casual tutor with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney since 2021.

He is currently writing a book with Alison Battisson and the Human Rights For All team titled The Freedom Trials, which documents stories from long-term immigration detention. He also has a comedy TV series about refugees in production with Tilt Media.

Mark and his family moved to northern NSW in 2021, where he writes and works as a sessional academic.