​Mark Jacobs writes stories. Many of these take place in the countries around the world where he has lived, worked, and traveled, from Spain to the Congo, Paraguay to Kazakhstan. Others take place in Broadhope County, a protectorate of the imagination situated in rural south central Virginia, where he and his wife Anne now live. Still others arise in and from the City of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Frontier, where he was born and grew up.

To date 206 of the stories have been published in magazines including The Hudson Review, Evergreen Review, The Atlantic, Playboy, The Baffler, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, and many others.

​There are more stories. 

Upcoming Readings
​
SILENT LIGHT 

September 17, 2024 
7:00 PM 
​​Buffalo, NY

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
341 Delaware Ave | Buffalo, NY 14202

More Information

 October 20, 2024 
5:00 PM
Washington, D.C. ​

Busboys & Poets 
2021 14th St, NW | Washington, D.C. 20009

More Information - Coming Soon!

October 30, 2024 
6:00 PM
New York, NY

OR Books at The Francis Kite Club  
40 Avenue C | New York, NY 10009

More Information - Coming Soon!

NEW RELEASE

This is an ode to the wretched of the earth and the angels that ​walk among them. Welcome a great American writer."
​
​- Marita Golden, author of The Wide Circumference of Love

Mark Jacobs is our greatest living writer of short stories, it could well be said. With Silent Light, after hundreds of splendid stories, it is time to examine his greatness as a novelist as well."

​- Evans Hopkins, author of Life After Life

SILENT LIGHT

July 2024 | OR BOOKS

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Keep reading.

Short Stories

200+ short stories
in magazines

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Books

4 novels and
​2 short story collections

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Essays & More

20+ essays, interviews
​and reviews

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​Recently published.

• In the Shadow | Smoky Blue
• ​In Another City | Lowestoft Chronicle
•  Sleepy Jesus | Change Seven
• Arch of Flowers | The Hudson Review
• Book Words | The Hudson Review
• Sharp Knives | Lowestoft Chronicle
• Twenty One Duck Salute | Johnny America
• Dinner and Heartbreak | Steam Ticket
• Some Things I Remember | The Lowestoft Chronicle
• ​The Glamour | Evergreen Review Books
• ​Manolo Took My Phone | Lowestoft Chronicle
• Note to Self | Blue Mountain Review
• ​​Glimpses | Parhelion
• The Road to Agadez | Lowestoft Chronicle
• Steps | The Hudson Review
• The Attaché | Blue Lake Review ​​
• What Birds Know | Fictive Dream
• On the Jetty | Lowestoft Chronicle
• Whigging Out: How I Kept Getting an Important Thing Wrong | Lowestoft Chronicle (essay)
• Back Where You’ve Never Been | ArLiJo
• Two Days Out From San Juan | Lowestoft Chronicle
• Stiff | The Hudson Review

"Every now and then a novel comes along that not only reinvigorates your faith in what a novel can accomplish but reimagines for you how a novel can be made,
​the fluency of its movements and the potency of its meanings.”

WILLIAM GIRALDI
Author of Hold the Dark

MARK JACOBS
​Writer.

Born in Niagara Falls, Mark Jacobs spent fifteen years living and working in countries outside the United States. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, where he spent two years in Potrero Yapepó, a remote village in the south of the country. As a Foreign Service officer, he served in Europe, Turkey, and Latin America. He currently lives in rural Virginia, on 32 acres of what used to be a farm, where he writes full time. 

​Jacobs holds a doctorate from Drew University, a masters from the School for International Training, and a bachelors degree from Alma College. He speaks Spanish, Turkish, and Guaraní. ​

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