<TL;DR bio
Mark Landon Jarvis is a professor of Children’s Literature. He holds a bachelor’s in education and a Master’s in English from Kansas State University.
His six novels in the Endless Tempest series are set in the Midwest but span the world. They are near-future, soft science fiction stories of characters overcoming crushing corporate control.
Jarvis, a native Kansan, continues to thrive with his family on a hobby farm outside of Wichita.
Easter Egg: here’s Jarvis with Humpty Dumpty, a mosaic tile outside his kindergarten classroom. It spawned many stories from him while he waited for the bus.
MLJ Biography
Mark Landon Jarvis was born in southwestern Kansas but now lives in a state of constant, total amazement. Much to the annoyance of friends, he finds everything to be awesome and loves to learn the how and why behind life, the universe and just about everything.
He’s been writing about futuristic optimists since he was first learning his letters. Mark tries to capture his characters’ enthusiasm in the stories he tells, anytime they will let him. Always looking ahead to the future, Mark’s first story, penned when Pluto was still a planet, told of an intrepid astronomer traveling the stars. Other stories focused on rebellious teens, riotous farmers, and retiring rockstars–all of which sought more of life in their time and their futures.
In graduate school, Mark earned degrees in teaching and in creative writing. Since teaching paid the bills, it became his passion, and his writing faded into his distant dreams. He fueled his optimism by inspiring college students to serve others in a sizable volunteer program. That endeavor partnered with AmeriCorps, where he met his wife, and she became his biggest inspiration of all.
When kids came along, his passion for storytelling returned. For thirteen years he and the kids invented unique stories every single night in raucous, gleeful participation tales. The kids most enjoyed when Mark would fall asleep, mid sentence, then pick up the tale on their prompting. A big regret is how few of those fanciful tales were ever recorded…but they live on in each child’s memory.
That bedtime storytelling inspired Mark to teach and study Children’s Literature. He also coaches and inspires faculty in best practices in teaching. As his kids have become the teenagers he used to write about, Mark dusted off old stories and again began writing near future science fiction novels. He has now crafted half a dozen full-length novels in the Endless Tempest series.
Today, Mark enjoys his hobby farm, backyard pirate ship, and family time. He will drop everything for a good conversation or a board game. He writes every morning, and every night he dreams about getting up early to write again.
