Mark Saunders

Essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and cartoonist Mark Saunders writes short, humorous pieces befitting his height and attention span. A former winner of the Walden Fellowship, presented to three Oregon writers or artists each year, Mark is currently doing heads-down work on a humorous novel based on his screenplay “Two Weeks in Roswell” (The aliens have landed and they’re on vacation).

Mark’s short plays have received many productions or public readings in North America and Europe. Five of his short comedies (“Who’s on Faust?”; “Playthings”; “Some People Say”; “Two People”; “Fictionistas”) have been published by Smith and Kraus, as well as two monologues (“Am I Right?”; “The Line Forms in My Rear”). Back in his drawing days, more than 500 of Mark’s cartoons were published nationally, in publications as far ranging as The San Jose Mercury News, Writer’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, and Twilight Zone Magazine. As a freelance gag writer, Mark wrote Sunday panels for the popular comic strip “Frank and Earnest,” as well as jokes for stand-up comics, including Jay Leno. With five feature film scripts and two short scripts optioned, not to mention a television pilot, his scripts have garnered insignificant awards and even less money. He once owned a Yugo (please don’t ask about the car).

Mark lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with his wife, Arlene Krasner, for more than a decade. His humorous, award-winning memoir about dropping out and moving to the middle of Mexico, Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak, is available in online and paper formats. He is also the author of Dogs, Cats and Expats, as well as co-author of She Cooks, He Eats; both are available on Amazon.