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Mark SaFranko is an American writer, playwright and actor based in New Jersey. His work is primarily located in the crime and confessional genres. SaFranko has written over 100 short stories, over 50 of which have been printed, as well as poetry, essays, and four novels. He has also written a dozen plays, some produced in New York and others staged in Ireland. [1]
SaFranko was born in Trenton, New Jersey. [2] After attending Notre Dame High School, SaFranko turned towards writing, citing Henry Miller On Writing as a key influence, when he was aged around 18 or 19. [3]
SaFranko traveled extensively, settling for the longest period in Hoboken, New Jersey. During this time, he worked in many different jobs to sustain enough income to continue writing: a truck driver, freight loader, clothing salesman, short-order cook, dinner theater actor, factory hand, bar musician, bank clerk, political risk analyst, office temp, crime and sports reporter, fast food worker, and telephone sales solicitor. [4]
SaFranko has written four novels: Hating Olivia, Lounge Lizard, The Favor, and Hopler’s Statement. Reviewers have noted that his work "has its roots in painfully lived experience", [5] and portrays an "ugly and bleak" depiction of life. [3]
SaFranko's earlier novels, The Favor and Hopler's Statement, are in the crime genre.
The Favor, published by Aegina Press, follows the life of Timothy Biddle, an introverted worker who is drawn into an extramarital affair that ends in murder.
Hopler's Statement, which received a wider audience than The Favor, features a Rashomon-like narrative, where events surrounding a crime are told through a variety of different viewpoints.
SaFranko's recent novels have featured 'Max Zajack', SaFranko's literary alter-ego. SaFranko has rejected suggestions that the books are memoirs: "I've never written a memoir, or anything close. Autobiographical or confessional novels, yes, but no memoirs." [2] Themes in the Zajack novels include lust, obsession, violence and the desire to become an "artist". Zajack becomes a "dangerously alienated" sociopath, [6] unable to fit into conventional life.
Hating Olivia is based on SaFranko's young adulthood and a love–hate relationship with his lover, named 'Olivia Aphrodite', the goddess-like image of beauty. But like Zajack, her mental state is volatile, leading to physical and mental abuse from both parties. [7]
Hating Olivia was critically well received. A review in Bizarre Magazine said: "The words 'raw,' 'brutal,' 'addictive' and 'brilliant' are so overused they have almost lost their meaning, but they are fitting descriptions of a memoir from a very, very talented author." [8] Reviewer Susan Tomaselli said that: "It's easy to spot the Hamsun, Bukowski and Fante on SaFranko's bookshelves, but to say Hating Olivia is just a facsimile of these writers is way off the mark. SaFranko writes from the heart... crafting a furious and passionate piece of work that is entirely his own, with some scenes that would make even Bukowski blush." [9]
Hating Olivia’s sequel Lounge Lizard charts Zajack's further descent. Based on SaFranko's attempt to integrate into the corporate world of 1980s New York, Zajack sinks into a grinding job for AT&T, with his only release in a series of one-night stands and affairs with women met in New York clubs. Zajack's desire to become an artist is lost in a sea of work and sex, until he is forced to rediscover himself.
SaFranko has over 50 short stories published in a range of publications, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine ("Acts Of Revenge"), The MacGuffin ("The Ecstasy"), and The Savage Kick Literary Magazine ("Role of A Lifetime"). His story "Rescuing Ravel" (Descant, 2005) won the Frank O'Connor Award for Best Short Fiction. "The Man In Unit 24" (Hawai’i Review) was cited in Best American Mysteries 2000.
SaFranko's short stories fluctuate between realism and crime, and often combine both. Although the narrative shifts between first- and third-person, the emphasis is often on the central character's mental state, and interior thought. According to Murder Slim Press, a collection of SaFranko's story stories will appear in 2008. [10]
SaFranko's plays have featured on Off-Off Broadway venues, and through theaters in Ireland, including Dancing For Men, The Bitch-Goddess, and Incident in the Combat Zone. [11] The plays feature SaFranko's emphasis on dark themes mixed with dark humour. A review in The Carrigdhoun said that "SaFranko's two black comedies are mini-masterpieces of acute observation and dark humour, but at all times entertaining and captivating." [12]
He has also appeared in a series of low-budget films, including A Better Place and The Road From Erebus.
SaFranko is a long-term friend of fellow author Dan Fante, and introduced Fante to his current wife. [7]
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city of Los Angeles. Bukowski's work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City.
James Myers Thompson was an American prose writer and screenwriter, known for his hardboiled crime fiction.
John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) about the life of Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel, and is one in a series of four, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet". Ask the Dust was adapted into a 2006 film starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Fante's published works while he lived included five novels, one novella, and a short story collection. Additional works, including two novels, two novellas, and two short story collections, were published posthumously. His screenwriting credits include, most notably, Full of Life, Jeanne Eagels (1957), and the 1962 films Walk on the Wild Side and The Reluctant Saint.
John Dann MacDonald was an American writer of novels and short stories. He is known for his thrillers.
The Avenger is a fictional character whose original adventures appeared between September 1939 and September 1942 in the pulp magazine The Avenger, published by Street & Smith, which ran 24 issues. Five additional short stories were published in Clues Detective magazine (1942–1943), and a sixth novelette in The Shadow magazine in 1943. Decades later, newly written pastiches were commissioned and published by Warner Brothers' Paperback Library from 1973 to 1974.
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney Jr. is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled Bright, Precious Days, published in 2016. From April 2010 he was a wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career, titled How It Ended, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.
Henry Charles "Hank" Chinaski is the literary alter ego of the American writer Charles Bukowski, appearing in five of Bukowski's novels, a number of his short stories and poems, and the films Barfly and Factotum. Although much of Chinaski's biography is based on Bukowski's own life story, the Chinaski character is still a literary creation that is constructed with the veneer of what the writer Adam Kirsch calls "a pulp fiction hero." Works of fiction that feature the character include Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With the Beasts (1965), Post Office (1971), South of No North (1973), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), Hot Water Music (1983), Hollywood (1989), and Septuagenarian Stew (1990). He is also mentioned briefly in the beginning of Bukowski's last novel, Pulp (1994).
Ecco is a New York-based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquired by HarperCollins, with Halpern remaining at the head. Since 2000, Ecco has published the yearly anthology The Best American Science Writing, edited by Jesse Cohen. In 2011, Ecco created two separate publishing lines, one "curated" by chef-author Anthony Bourdain and the other by novelist Dennis Lehane.
The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1796) is a Gothic novel written by the English author Ann Radcliffe. It is the last book Radcliffe published during her lifetime. The Italian has a dark, mysterious, and somber tone which fixates on the themes of love, devotion, and persecution during the time period of Holy Inquisition. The novel deals with issues prevalent at the time of the French Revolution, such as religion, aristocracy, and nationality. Radcliffe's renowned use of veiled imagery is considered to have reached its height of sophistication and complexity in The Italian; concealment and disguise are central motifs of the novel. The novel is noted for its extremely effective antagonist, Father Schedoni, who influenced the Byronic characters of Victorian literature.
Ask the Dust is the most popular novel of American author John Fante, first published in 1939 and set during the Great Depression era in Los Angeles. It is one of a series of novels featuring the character Arturo Bandini as Fante's alter ego, a young Italian-American from Colorado struggling to make it as a writer in Los Angeles.
Dirty realism is a term coined by Bill Buford of Granta magazine to define a North American literary movement. Writers in this sub-category of realism are said to depict the seamier or more mundane aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned language.
John Martin is an American publisher who founded the Black Sparrow Press. As a publisher, he is best known for his work with Charles Bukowski, John Fante, and Paul Bowles. He is based in Santa Rosa, California.
Daniel Smart Fante was an American author and playwright. He was born in Los Angeles.
William Murray is an American novelist, journalist, short story, and comic book writer. Much of his fiction has been published under pseudonyms. With artist Steve Ditko, he co-created the superhero Squirrel Girl.
Legion is a 1983 horror novel by American writer William Peter Blatty, a sequel to The Exorcist. It was adapted for the film The Exorcist III in 1990. Like The Exorcist, it involves demonic possession. The book was the focus of a court case over its exclusion from The New York Times Best Seller list. Blatty based aspects of the Gemini Killer on the real life Zodiac Killer, who in a January 1974 letter to the San Francisco Chronicle had praised the original Exorcist film as "the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen".
Simon Mason is a British author of juvenile and adult fiction.
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a landmark United States federal law, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010. Conceived as a response to the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., both in 1998, the measure expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Noah Van Sciver is an independent American cartoonist. He currently resides in Columbia, South Carolina.
Mary Jane Maffini is a Canadian mystery writer. She has created three mystery series and written 12 novels.
Bob Hýsek, is a Czech translator from English, an editor, publisher, publicist, and organiser and populariser of slam poetry. He teaches at the Department of English and American Studies, Palacký University Olomouc Faculty of Arts.
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