Mark Whittaker Biography     In the 4th grade I got in trouble because of my writing. Our assignment was to compose a essay about St. Patrick’s Day. While the other students wrote cute tales of rainbows, good luck and four leaf clovers, my tale involved the Leprechauns getting revenge on the rest of the world because they had grown tired of everyone stealing their pots of gold by forming a strike force. This made both my teacher and parents quite concerned.     After that, I knew I wanted to be a writer.     Cut to 1998. I was living in San Francisco after dabbling in film school in Santa Barbara, recently quitting film production (one of the main reasons I moved to San Francisco) and jumping from dead end job to dead end job. A good friend had just become managing editor of a Chico based magazine called Synthesis and hired me as a freelance music journalist. This lead to other magazine jobs and a multitude of “dot com” era copy work at the time. After the “dot bomb” I focused mainly on my journalism, working, sometimes, for over a dozen periodicals and websites such as Zero, Skratch, Devil in the Woods, Metal Maniacs, PIT, Nightime.net, Nitevibe.com, Shredding Paper, Bourgeois, SF Weekly, Bay Area Buzz, etc while continuing my position with Synthesis.     In 2005 I moved out of San Francisco and into my dad’s spare bedroom in Palm Springs to try and compose my first novel. There I managed to land a writing job with the Desert Local News interviewing local bands and acts. My work appeared in one issue before I found myself back in San Francisco to help a friend in need.     Between the years 2005 and 2006 I survived a strange and farcical series of events while at the same time landing DJ gigs at a popular club and local radio station, all of which became the fodder for my first novel Rabbit Every Tuesday.     After falling in love and sacrificing everything, I moved to Tucson AZ in 2006. Several odd jobs later, which included co-directing a children’s museum, assistant editing a southern Arizona tourist magazine and fund-raising for the Tucson Symphony, I gave it all up to focus entirely on being a full-time writer. This includes regular contributions to local publications, a few of my longtime affiliated magazines and my own writing projects.       Recently I took a part-time job as a pizza chef in a popular bar and restaurant and, in late 2008, that allowed me enough time to complete my first novel, Rabbit Every Tuesday. Currently I am hard at work trying to find the best agent/agency for me, get published and start my second novel.     The best part is, I feel as if I am just getting started....                     Mark Whittaker • Tucson, AZ  • vadershairnet@yahoo.com