Mark Jarman

Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of 19 Knives, My White Planet, New Orleans is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa and the travel book Ireland's Eye. His novel, Salvage King Ya!, is on Amazon.ca's list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon's list of best hockey fiction.  He has been short-listed for the O. Henry Prize and Best American Essays, he won a Gold National Magazine Award in nonfiction, has twice won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment Award, won the Jack Hodgins Fiction Prize, and has been included in The Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Stories.

He has published in Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Hobart, The Barcelona Review, Vrig Nederland, and The Hong Kong Review. He is a graduate of The Iowa Writers' Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, and he is an editor with the new magazine Camel.

His collection of stories, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, was published in 2015, Czech Techno (Stories of Music) in 2020, and a travel book, Touch Anywhere to Begin, in 2022. Jarman edited Best Canadian Stories: 2023, and his most recent book, Burn Man, garnered rave reviews in Canada and the US and was a New York Times Editors Choice.

A. S. BYATT on Mark Jarman:
At last. It is very irritating to discover a wonderful book published too long ago to be an official "book of the year." I was talking to a German friend, a few years ago, and we were trying to think of the greatest short story ever. We agreed enthusiastically that it was Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle." Martin then said reflectively, "Unless it is 'Burn Man on a Texas Porch'." I had never heard of that, nor of its author, Mark Anthony Jarman, a Canadian. (Canadians specialise in great short stories - Munro, Atwood...). Jarman's collection is called 19 Knives (House of Anansi Press), and it is brilliant. The writing is extraordinary, the stories are gripping, it is something new. And now I can say so.  The Guardian, November 24, 2007