Friday Feature: @MarkOlmsted

Yes, we blinked and it happened again, dear Prosers. It’s Friday. And what a day it is, as it’s the time of the week that we get another Proser’s information. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. Yep, I quoted 1984. 

Anyway, this week we get to meet one helluva guy that if you don’t know on Prose, then you really should. It’s @MarkOlmsted

P: What is your given name and your Proser username?

M: They are one and the same - Mark Olmsted. But I do have a slightly interesting story about my name. I am half-French, and my mother named me after my grandfather, Marcel. But my dad was afraid I would be teased for sounding “foreign” (it was 1958), so he made sure it was spelled “Mark” was on my birth certificate. When I grew older, I started to use “Marc” for all my writing, even using MarcOlmsted.com as a website. 

When Facebook came on the scene, I friended another Marc Olmsted, who turned out to be a fairly prominent San Francisco poet. He eventually told me he was starting to get asked at readings how prison and HIV had affected his work (audience members had googled him and stumbled on my history.) So I offered to switch back to my legal spelling permanently, and even gave him my website. I didn’t really mind – it ends up being easier to use the same spelling as the one on your license anyway.

P: Where do you live?

M: Hollywood, California.

P: What is your occupation?

M: I transcribe movies and TV shows, as well as edit film subtitles. (They come to me in English, but they often are not perfectly translated or have grammatical or spelling errors, so I fix them.)

P: What is your relationship with writing and how has it evolved?

M: I majored in screenwriting at NYU Film School, and that was my focus for 15 years. I came very, very close to getting a movie made, but two directors died on me in a row and I took what turned out to be a very long break. I then switched to magazine writing, and edited a national publication for gay men. Then I stopped working because of HIV, and got into drugs, but did keep writing poetry. In 2004 I spent 9 months in prison, and wrote letters home rather prolifically. They formed the basis of my memoir, Ink from the Pen. After my release, I blogged extensively, both personally and as a journalist. I got a M.A. in Creative Writing in 2013, and my Master’s Thesis was a screenplay, The Exiled Heart. Through it all, I have always written short stories, the best of which are in Lost and Found in the Prose Bookstore.

P: What value does reading add to both your personal and professional life?

M: They say a good writer is a good reader, and I think this is true. But it’s also a challenge for me to read as much as I’d like because I often feel I should use that time to be writing. (I’m 58, and way behind schedule!) That’s why I do most of my non-internet reading on the stationery bike at the gym. It’s amazing how many books you can read in a year just by devoting 90 minutes a week to it.

P: Can you describe your current literary ventures and what can we look forward to in future posts?

M: Completing Ink from the Pen was huge for me, and I’m trying to find a literary agent to shop it to traditional publishers. I will keep adding pieces to my other three books in the Prose bookstore, and will continue work on the prequel to Ink – which documents the long and gradual arc of mendacity and addiction that lead to my incarceration.

P: What do you love about Prose?

M: Well, first the community – it’s amazingly supportive. I have yet to post anything that does not get read and commented on favorably – which I also try to do for others as much as possible, particularly the Poets in Prison.

But it is the bookstore that has put a great anxiety of mine to rest. I have finally found one repository for all of my eclectic work. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I know my work will live on forever on one bookshelf on the internet. And if I never write a bestseller in this lifetime, who knows, I may become a sensation in some Star Trekian world of the future, where a vast intergalactic computer scans literature from the previous 3000 years for every reader’s taste.

P: Is there one book that you would recommend everybody should read before they die?

M: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It is a perfect book.

P: Do you have an unsung hero who got you into reading and/or writing?

M: My fourth grade teacher, Miss Mitchell, assigned us to write a short story as our semester assignment. I was pretty sure after finishing mine: The Black-Framed Letter (about the French underground – which amusingly, I thought was actually located underground), I knew I was going to be a writer.

P: Describe yourself in three words!

M: Funny. Clever. Compassionate.

P: Is there one quote, from a writer or otherwise, that sums you up?

M: “It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'”

–W. Somerset Maugham

P: What is your favourite music, and do you write or read to it?

M: Movie scores – Alexander Desplat in particular I really love to write to. And of course sometimes you just have to take a break and dance to Marvin Gaye.

P: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?

M: I’d ask for a pen and paper and start writing one, of course. (Everybody must say that.) I suspect I’d call it: “The Super Brand-New Testament.”

Of course, I might have to teach them to read and probably re-invent the printing press, so it could take a while.

P: Do you have a favourite place to read and write?

M: My computer is in my bedroom office. As a matter of practicality, it’s the only place I write. But I like it fine because I have a horrific case of A.D.D. and need to check Facebook, Prose, and Twitter every 7 minutes.

P: Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you/your work/social media accounts?

M: Read everything I post on Prose and like it. Retweet everything I post on Twitter (@marquismarq). Follow me on Facebook and slavishly comment on every post, only saying worshipful things. And buy my book. Lots and lots of copies.

Well, you heard the man! Follow him! Read him! Adore him! Seriously, go check him out, you won’t be disappointed. Get those eyes opened up to stuff you may not know about.

And again we implore you: we want more Prosers for this feature, so if you like it, then please suggest people, and even volunteer yourselves. Prose wants you to feature in future Friday Features. So c'mon, get busy and get in touch on paul@theprose.com