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Mark Wiederanders writes historical fiction that features characters who are geniuses as well as jerks. Those whose behaviors range from the heroic to the depraved, and from scandalous to transcendant. For example, in Stevenson's Treasure (Fireship Press, 2014), the author depicts Robert Louis Stevenson's wild journey from Scotland to California to woo a married American as the life-or-death struggle that gave him a guiding metaphor with which to write his first international bestseller, Treasure Island. Other famous subjects for Mark's fiction include William Shakespeare's daughter Judith (an award-winning screenplay and novel-in-progress), and California author Jack London (also a work-in-progress).
A native of San Francisco, Mark majored in psychology at California Lutheran University and then earned a Ph.D in psychology from the University of Colorado. After being Assistant Professor at a University of Wisconsin campus, he settled with his wife and young family in Sacramento, where he was a research psychologist who studied delinquency, violence, and the criminally insane. At nights he began writing fiction as a break from the dire situations of his work clientele. With his youngest daughter, Annie, he co-wrote a children's story, The Dinosaur Egg, that placed First in a Friends of the Library Competition. A few years later, his screenplay about William Shakespeare's youngest daughter was a top-ten finalist in the Academy of Motion Pictures' Nichol Fellowship competition. He is an alumnus of the Community of Writers Workshops, was a scholar at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and earned residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the New York Mills Cultural Center, and the Martha's Vineyard Writers' Residency.
He plays a leadership role in several writers' organizations, and currently lives in Northern California.