In October 2025, Renee Arrington and Olivia Merrill – the amazing tandem largely responsible for writing, editing and publishing the monthly LUN Newsletter – approached me about writing a newsletter article on Sports Viewing in Lowry. I agreed to their request and started riffing on how to write the piece to make it informative and entertaining to readers while also allowing my personality to come through.

For those of you who don’t know me, I can be a bit of a polarizing person in terms of personal interaction, and it usually presents in me being occasionally blunt and often snarky. For instance, if I encounter someone who lacks self-deprecation or needs their self-esteem to be ratcheted down a notch or two, then I’m always happy to help out and nudge him or her in the right direction in a non-offensive but snarky manner … ok sometimes it can be a little offensive if the person is thin-skinned or doesn’t like having their feathers ruffled.  I’ve just always been that way. You can take the boy out of the housing project, but you can’t take the housing project out of the boy. Most people enjoy my snark, but some people do not. And it’s even more fun when the snark turns into a back-and-forth exchange … an all-out snark fest that can evolve into straight-up craic.

When I started writing the initial article, I came up with the pen name, Snarky Mark, as a reflection of my personality and as a cover for my identity. The reader response to that first article was very positive which caught me by surprise. In the first week after it was published, I had at least a dozen people (neighbors, friends and acquaintances) approach me and ask if I was Snarky Mark. I guess my reputation precedes me. And my answer was always the same, “Maybe.” … which usually elicited a smile and a comment that they really enjoyed reading the article. My favorite response though came from a neighbor on the next block. As I walked by her house on the way to the Town Center, she was on her front porch and said, “Hey, I need to ask you something. Are you Snarky Mark?”  “Maybe.”  Then she started jabbing her index finger at me and said, “I knew it!  I knew it was you!”

It’s been almost a year now since the first Snarky Mark article was published and doing the column really renewed my interest in writing. However, I’m running out of topics that readers would find informative, interesting and/or entertaining while also being enjoyable for me to write, so this is the end of the line for Snarky Mark in the LUN newsletter. 

It isn’t the end of my writing though. I am in the initial phases of writing a book that will be a collection of my life experiences/stories – some humorous; some not – similar to David Sedaris’ books. And if you haven’t read any of his books, he is an exceptional writer and one of my favorite authors. “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is a great book to start with.

I wanted to title my book “Snarky Mark: Channeling My Inner David Sedaris” and sent a letter to Sedaris with a couple samples of my writing and asked permission to use his name in the title.  Last week, I received a personal postcard from him with some rather caustic comments as Sedaris is wont to do. He essentially took me behind the woodshed and gave me a whuppin’.  I fully expect to be featured in his next book with a chapter titled “Snark Off”.

So, I’ve pivoted off that title … the new frontrunner is “Snarky Mark: Blow It Out Your Ass, David Sedaris!” with the postcard on the front cover. It may be delusions of grandeur but the combination of the title and the postcard on the cover could land me on the NYT Best Sellers List all by itself.

Anyway, I’ve come up with 30 possible topics to riff on and hope to come up with a dozen or so more and then select the topics that readers would find most interesting/amusing. I figure that it will take 18-24 months to complete the book, so I want to really focus my writing efforts on that endeavor right now versus writing for the LUN newsletter.  We’ll see where it goes.

In closing, thank you for reading my articles. It’s been an honor and a privilege to write for you.  All the best and see you in the ‘hood.

Editor’s note: We offer our heartfelt thanks to Snarky Mark for a year of his time. He picked up the baton when Sally Kurtzman retired. We encourage those readers who have enjoyed this article to send a note to connect@lowryunitedneighborhoods.org. Perhaps we can convince Snarky Mark to make a guest appearance from time to time when he feels he has something to say. Or perhaps he can give us an update on his book.