Mark Beaver’s work is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, and has appeared in The Southeast Review, Old Red Kimono, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of UNC Greensboro’s MFA program and lives outside of Atlanta. “Roadkill” is part of a memoir-in-progress.

In answer to our question of why he writes, Mark responded:

“Here’s where I feel compelled to say something Profound like ‘Everybody has stories to tell, and if we don’t tell ours, they never get told’. Which is true, by the way. But really it comes down to this: One day I want to go into a bookstore in some strange city I’ve never been in, and find a book with my name on it. If this ever happens, I’ll buy it off the shelf right then, I swear—even though I wrote the thing.”

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