Mark Olmsted
Mark Olmsted has been a writer since graduating from NYU School of the Arts in 1980. After over a decade in Manhattan, he moved to California to purse screenwriting and take care of his brother, who died of AIDS in 1991. Gay and HIV-positive himself, Mark self-medicated through the worst of the plague years with crystal meth, which led to a conviction for drug-dealing in 2004 and nine months in prison. “Ink from the Pen” is the story of his time behind bars. Mark emerged into a life of recovery and activism, getting a Master’s Degree in the Humanities at Mount St. Mary’s University and penning hundreds of essays on the Huffington Post, Medium and Substack. He is working on an expanded memoir as well as a novel, and is presently the subject of three episodes of the podcast, Everything is Stories. He lives in Los Angeles.