Mark Sarvas
Mark Sarvas is one of sixty authors who attended The Press Christchurch Writers Festival from September 4th to 7th, 2008
Mark Sarvas was born in New York, the son of Hungarian parents. He credits a creative writing teacher at high school with steering him towards writing, that and reading The great Gatsby (which he reads once a year). He ended up in Los Angeles where he wrote screenplays but was in the position of writing material that never eventuated on the screen. He discovered blogging and is now well known for his literary blog, The elegant variation, which has been singled out by various critics and publications as one of the best blogs out there on the web.
His first novel Harry, revised is a very readable account of a man whose wife has died. He is attracted to a waitress at a local restaurant and to win her he enters into various devious strategies, most of which backfire. Harry is someone who manages to make a mess of most things in his life and some of what happens is very funny but he becomes more appealing as things go on despite all the mishaps which are of his own making. Moving between Harry now and Harry in his married days, it’s a true original and a great read.
