A life by inference is better than no life at all.
     
Dunn pushes his propensity for quirky to the limit, creating a full-length novel entirely upon the margins of a fictitious biography of Jonathan Blashette, as three-legged circus performer-cum-entrepreneur and humanitarian. When his editor loses the manuscript of this biography, he offers to publish the only text left: the footnotes.

“Being one of those rare birds who actually reads footnotes,” says Dunn, “I often find myself rewarded by my time spent in the margins. Many authors give themselves wonderful license in their footnotes to let their guard down, even get a little frisky and mischievous.”

Dunn holds up a funhouse mirror to the pedestaled residents of the twentieth century and has a laugh at the expense of the events and luminaries of an era that perhaps took itself just a little too seriously.

About Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn is the author of Ella Minnow Pea, Welcome to Higby, and Ibid published by MacAdam/Cage, and co-author with his wife, Mary, of United States Counties, a one-volume compendium of information on U.S. counties, published by McFarland & Company, Inc. He has also written twenty-five full-length plays, nine published in acting edition by Samuel French, Inc., Dramatists Play Service, and Dramatic Publishing Company. His work has been produced throughout the United States and Canada and in Hong Kong, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.

Dunn has received several awards for his work. His novel Ella Minnow Pea won the Borders Original Voices Book of the Year for fiction, was short-listed for Booksense Book of the Year, and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.

Mark and Mary Dunn are among the founding board members of PULA: People United for Libraries in Africa, an organization devoted to building libraries throughout Africa.

Originally from Memphis, he now makes his home in New Mexico.