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 detention centres 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 conditions on the island. His second book, Nauru Burning (Editia, 2016), follows up The Undesirables with an investigative report into human rights abuses in Nauru.

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. He currently has a TV series derived from his experiences as a case manager in production with Tilt Media.

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 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, was exhibited in Newcastle Libraries and Kogarah Library in New South Wales, Australia.

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 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.

Although he and his family moved to northern NSW in 2021, Mark is studying for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology, Sydney. The thesis is titled Australia’s War on People Smugglers. He is also writing a book with Alison Battisson and the Human Rights For All team titled The Freedom Trials, which will document stories from long-term immigration detention.