Interview with Mark Divine Highlighting the Release of his New Book, Nightmare, Coming Out August 12
An Author Interview by Cassidy Paredes
Mark Divine is a photographer, indie author, and poet, sharing his new poetry collection Nightmare with the world. As this talented author gets ready for his long-awaited book release, I met with Mark Divine to discuss his writing journey, his photography, the inspiration behind Nightmare, his upcoming writing projects, and some insider info on his other two poetry books, Lost Lullabies and Heartbreak Hotel.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, Mark’s passion for art awakened when he was a kid. In our interview, Mark remembered always having a story to tell and how his mother encouraged his creativity from an early age.
Mark said, “So as a kid, I always wanted to write stories, but I was really, really bad at finishing them. I remember my mom would open the notes app on the laptop for me as a kid, and I would press buttons and try to write sentences. I always wanted to rewrite all these movies I saw; it was never something original,” he joked.
“Then when I would go to bed, the next morning my mom would finish the story and print it out for me, and I always thought that was so fun and a really good memory.”
When Mark was in high school, his artistic passions began to grow after taking a photography class for fun. He said, “The more and more I got involved with the storytelling aspect of photography, I found that it was a really good avenue to express the things I was dealing with. So, I got really involved with it, and I started doing a lot of weird photos in school, while a lot of my classmates were doing more normal stuff, I guess. I always liked to do something really, really weird or really different from everybody else.
“Not for any particular reason,” he continued, “but I just always gravitated to pushing the boundary of trying to do something that I thought was cool— something other people might think would be weird or grotesque or something. So, I got really involved with it in high school and then I just kept going.”
His photography took off as he began growing his Instagram where he posts his art regularly. Through doing photoshoots of other people, Mark began to experiment with solo shoots.
“I was always behind the camera, and then I just found confidence in just trying to do stuff of myself— an alter ego almost. I found a lot of confidence doing that, and, you know, I taught everything myself and used what I had from high school.
“Photography just became a really big coping mechanism almost,” Mark said. “If I was feeling a certain way, I would just make some type of weird fantasy edit of what I was feeling, and I guess people liked it. So, I just kept on doing it, and I love doing it. It's definitely a good avenue for me because I'm such a visual artist.”
The pandemic was a great opportunity for Mark Divine to get creative and get ideas for his upcoming project, he said in our interview. That is when he really started getting into his photography and making it his own.
Follow Mark Divine's Instagram to see more of his photography here.
In addition to his love for photography, during his senior year of high school, Mark took a creative writing class that really shaped his love for writing and poetry. He remembered one assignment specifically that really shaped the way he looked at writing. He said, “I remember I did an assignment, and I was writing about a subject that has human characteristics to it. So, I went home and wrote about my shadow. As a kid, I was always so scared of the Peter Pan scene when his shadow would detach from his body, like on the wall.
“So, I wrote about that,” he continued. “It was about my shadow trying to kill me, and my teacher loved it. I started writing just for assignments, and then slowly but surely, I started really realizing that this is another avenue for me to express my emotions, you know? All of a sudden, it was like a switch that went up. I found this really good avenue, and I couldn't stop. I would come in from school and just sit on my floor writing for hours and hours.”
Some of Mark’s favorite artists that have shaped his writing style include the author of the Goosebumps series, R.L. Stine, YA writer Mary Downing Hahn, and horror genius Stephen King. In addition to liking books, Mark is heavily inspired by music. Some of his favorite musicians who have inspired him and his art include Lady Gaga (who is Mark’s idol), Marina, Lana Del Ray, Melanie Martinez, and Ethel Kane, to name a few.
Mark often listens to music while he writes. He said, “When I started writing on my own, I felt like my brain was so loud that I had to calm it down by listening to something that was going to influence what I wanted to write about.
“So, at the beginning of my first project, Lost Lullabies,” he continued, “I was listening to a lot of music box type of sounds like toy sounds or very creepy music instrumentals to inflict some type of inspiration on what I was trying to write about. I think for Nightmare, I was listening to a lot of instrumental heavy, grungy type of industrial sounds and lo-fi beats. When I write, it definitely just zones me out, and I feel like I'm in the world I'm trying to tell through the poem. I think music definitely is a huge part of my work.”
After high school, Mark was always writing poetry. He really wanted to release a book, and after much research, he decided to self-publish his first poetry collection, Lost Lullabies, on Amazon at the age of 18.
He recalled spending the whole summer in his room with one friend, working so hard on Lost Lullabies. He said, “Lost Lullabies created itself, and it just happened. I think a lot of people, in the beginning, were kind of like, yeah, haha, it's a lot more work than you think, like maybe you should look into something else. And you know, I have the eye of the tiger. I wanted to prove everyone wrong.
“I was very, very angsty: I was still a teenager, and I was writing so much about bitterness, stuff with friends, and stuff with myself. I just wanted to write about everything because I thought that was the only opportunity, I had to write just that one project. It was a complete mess, and I wish I could go back and change so much of it, but I'm still proud of it. While I was writing Lost Lullabies, I was also writing Heartbreak Hotel, and right after Heartbreak Hotel, I was writing Nightmare. I'm always working on the next project.”
During our interview, Mark gave more insight into his book Lost Lullabies and Heartbreak Hotel, explaining that his poetry books are both conceptual stories from start to finish, following Mark’s character he created, Mark Divine.
When Mark first started writing, he knew he needed to create an alter ego to tell his stories. He said, “Mark Divine was a character I created back when I was first starting out. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I just remember sitting with my friends one day being like, I want to put out a book. I knew I needed to create this alter ego, so my friends just started calling me Mark Divine as a joke. It just kind of stuck. So, I just kind of was like, oh, Mark Divine is this character that I want to be. I want to portray this person through my art.
“I didn't really know who he was at the time, and then as I started writing and letting the character fester in the corner of my mind,” he explained, “it started to turn into this fantasy version of myself that I don't want to be. He's like the most bitter, angry, very evil side of me. So that's why it was like, it is me, but it's this version of me that is in this world. I just created him as a coping mechanism, and I would say it's kind of like a alter ego— like this evil twin dynamic, especially in Nightmare.”
Through this character, Mark has had the ability to be completely raw and vulnerable in his writing, bringing real and emotional art to his readers through his poetry books.
The Mark Divine character is seen through Lost Lullabies and Heartbreak Hotel and continues his journey through Mark’s new poetry book Nightmare, set to release on Friday, August 12, 2022.
Watch my full interview with Mark Divine to hear more about his inspiration behind Lost Lullabies and Heartbreak Hotel.
Here’s what Mark has to say about his new book, Nightmare: “I started writing it as a continuation to Heartbreak Hotel way back in 2019, and the book changed so many times. At first, I was like, maybe I'll write stories. Maybe it'll be about nightmares and dreams, and then I just started writing poetry again. Ideas started piling up. I knew there was something there, I just didn't know what. So, it kind of sat on the back burner for a long time, and I didn't know what Nightmare was really going to become.
“And then the pandemic hit,” Mark continued, “and that was a really big dump on my creative plans and what I wanted to do, and how I was going to portray this project. I just thought about different topics I wanted to write about, and it festered into itself becoming a big metaphor for not only pain and trauma, but you know, I think through the pandemic, we had a lot of soul-searching to do. I did a lot of inner-looking into myself, and I realized that I was not happy, and I was very, very sad and very depressed. I was going through a lot of stuff that has happened to me that I hadn't gotten help for, I think. So, when I started to get help, I started reflecting more, and Nightmare became a coping mechanism that I would write for my trauma.”
Mark referred to this project as his “big trauma dump,” but ultimately, Nightmare is a metaphor for having a trauma response. As someone who has dealt with trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and depression, Mark used his passion for writing to symbolize mental health and what it feels like slipping into PTSD episodes.
He said, “At the beginning of writing Nightmare, it was really dark and really hard. I just felt like something would take over me, and I just didn't feel like myself. It reminded me of possession, like in a movie you see, and that's what really inspired the darker version of Mark Divine— like who is this character?
“What is he dealing with? Why does he kind of transform into this theme? And whenever something doesn't go his way, it was really, really fun to experiment and play with the character again. But everything that I put into these books, or the imagery, always has some type of meaning. It's not meant to be shocking. It always has some type of meaning to me.”
Mark created the book cover design for his newest poetry collection, Nightmare. “I wrote the book myself. I think I have to create the cover myself, so I just had so many ideas for the cover, and it never worked out. I sat on it for six months and then finally, I just was playing around with different images and with edits one night, and it just like clicked.
“And I was like, this is it. This is the one! It just makes so much sense for the story. It makes so much sense for the character, and the cover has so many double meanings and means so much to me. It's probably my favorite one so far. I just love it so much. But yes, I created both covers.
I did the paperback and hardcover myself, and I did it all during the pandemic. So, I was really holding onto this for a long time. It's been really wild.”
Buy Mark Divine’s poetry collection, Nightmare, here.
One of the most rewarding parts of Mark Divine’s writing journey has been being able to release his books and having the confidence to write about the challenging obstacles people face in life in order to inspire others.
“I think everyone has those moments, but when you realize that you just like don't care and you're fearless, you just get these like wings, and you fly so high— I think that’s what it’s like. The highlight of this journey is recognizing this confidence that I never had and creating a world that was mine and not having anybody step on my toes.
“I just created a world that was completely for me, and it felt so fun and freeing. So, I think that was the highlight of this whole journey. This whole time I was able to do that and ultimately connect with people. Hearing from people that I don't even know tell me that they resonated with something that I made, whether it's a photo I created or it's a piece of poetry is just so rewarding. I’ve met so many people through it, and people really connect with the character, like the storyline, and relate to him in different ways.”
While Mark is excited for the upcoming release of his new book Nightmare, coming out on the 12th, he is still working on upcoming projects:
“I'm not going anywhere. I have a lot of cool ideas. Nightmare has two versions— there’s a paperback version and then a hardcover version. The interiors are the same, but the covers are different. Then, I’m going to be releasing something else that I’m really excited about actually, and it’s almost done: it's kind of like a free version of Nightmare. It's really small, and it's an add-on bonus, I guess, called Insomnia. Oh, and it's gonna be on my Wattpad. I really like posting things on there— things that are too short to make into a book.
“So, I’m really excited for that to come out, and then I think I’m going to be making a book series of creepy stories. I have really cool, awesome people around me that are willing to help out and write it with me. I'm really excited to introduce new people with me, and it's kind of a collaborative project. So, it's going to be a challenge to make, but I am willing to take the risk and challenge. I'm really excited about it. So, yeah, I definitely will be getting into my Goosebumps era.”
With so many exciting projects to look forward to, follow Mark Divine on his Instagram to keep up with his writing journey and get updates on his art and poetry. Mark’s books are all available on Amazon.
Follow Mark Divine on Instagram here.
Check out Mark Divine’s poetry books Lost Lullabies, Heartbreak Hotel, and Nightmare here.
Check out Mark’s Wattpad to read Insomnia when it comes out here.
Check out Mark Divine’s Linktree here.
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