Mark Jenkins, Global Correspondent

Can’t keep a guy like Mark Jenkins down on the farm, not after he’s cycled across Siberia, paddled a kayak from battlefield to battlefield along the Turkish coast of Gallipoli, and climbed the icy Italian Ridge of the Matterhorn. Mark, a Laramie native and two-time WAC fellowship recipient, reports that he just returned from researching an article on Pakistan for National Geographic and will depart for Botswana next week to do a story for Bicycling magazine about AIDS/HIV health workers.

Between assignments, he’s at home in Laramie, spending time with his wife Sue and two daughters. Says Mark: “Even after circling the globe dozens of times, I still believe Laramie to be a wonderful place to live. It has just the right balance of cultural activities, limited traffic, intellectual residents who are often also outdoor athletes, open country right at your doorstep, gorgeous summers and brutal winters.”

After spending almost eight years writing for Outside magazine, Mark ended his column “The Hard Way” in October and departed for greener pastures. In the future, he says, “I’ll be focusing a bit less on adventure and more on geopolitical and environmental writing.” In 2007-2008, he will be writing more for the Atlantic Monthly and National Geographic, as well as working for Rodale Press as its global correspondent, penning pieces for Men's Health, Best Life, Backpacker, Bicycling and Runner's World.

Rodale will publish Mark’s second volume of collected works, A Man's Life, later this year. Rodale also is reissuing his first two books, Off The Map and To Timbuktu.

Meanwhile, you can read an original essay by Mark, "Growing Up in Wyoming," and an except from To Timbuktu, in Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming, published by Grebull's Pronghorn Press.

Labels: Deep West, fellowships, writers

- posted by Michael Shay @ 2:21 PM