Markjacon

I have been making up stories for as long as I can remember. I wrote my first books in first grade, although it took me considerably longer to become comfortable with the idea of letting other people read them.

Eventually, I decided stories are meant to be shared.

I write primarily fantasy and speculative fiction, usually beginning with a question that amuses or bothers me enough that I can’t leave it alone. What would immortality actually do to a person? What happens if Death gets burned out and quits? What makes a life meaningful if we already know how it ends?

Those questions tend to lead me toward stories about mortality, memory, identity, loss, choice, connection, and the strange ways people try to make sense of being alive. Sometimes they also lead to government agencies trying to regulate Death.

I’m equally fascinated by language, wordplay, patterns, puzzles, and unusual forms of storytelling. My work ranges from novels about life and death to tabletop adventures for young players, and even includes stories I wrote as a child and decided were better preserved than “improved.”

I don’t write because I think I have the answers to the questions my stories ask. Usually, I’m writing because I want to explore the question.

If a reader finishes one of my books entertained, perhaps a little surprised, and still thinking about an idea after the final page, then the story has done what I hoped it would do.

— Mark Hall