Mark R. Vickers - Florida Author Spotlight

Get to Know Mark

Mark Vickers has long made his living as a business writer, ghostwriter, editor, and researcher. He has also published essays, short stories, and poetry. He resides in St. Petersburg with his multi-talented wife, a homicidal tabby who is the Grendel of the local lizard population, a Siamese with an Oxford English-sized vocabulary. and a towering oak tree that howls madly during hurricanes. 

Read His Work

The Tollkeeper is a Frankenstein's monster of genre-blending. It's a literary fantasy that also has elements of Sunshine Noir, historical fiction, eco-fiction, and bildungsroman. It is narrated by an ancient Florida toll collector who tells two intertwined stories, an epic coming-of-age story set in medieval Norway and Iceland and a modern Florida murder mystery. It's also intended to be a rollicking romp but experiences may vary.

You can read portions of The Tollkeeper, meet the characters, and order your own copy here.

Learn About His Florida Connections

I attended Eckerd College years ago and have lived in the area on and off (though mostly on lately) since. I also lived in rural Florida near the Ocala Forest. It was there I was exposed to some of the amazing freshwater springs that helped inspire The Tollkeeper. 

I've attended a couple of Writers in Paradise conferences where I've gotten to meet and learn from some of Florida's brightest literary lights, and I've also gotten to know local writers via Wordier Than Thou and Keep St. Pete Lit events. The literary scene has definitely become more robust since I first attended Eckerd College, but even then there were some amazing writers among the professors there. 

Florida is a great place for surreal, satire-worthy craziness, so it's little wonder that this is reflected in my writings.