Mark Coggins

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Mark Coggins
Robert Crais and Mark Coggins
Robert Crais and Mark Coggins
Born1957
New Mexico, United States
OccupationAuthor, photographer
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationM.S. in Computer Science
Alma materStanford University
Genrecrime fiction
Notable works
Notable awardsIndependent Publisher Book Awards
2010 The Big Wake-Up

Mark Coggins is the Choctaw and American author of a series of novels featuring private eye protagonist August Riordan. He is also a photographer.

Biography[]

Coggins was born in New Mexico in 1957 and attended Stanford University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in International Relations, a masters in Computer Science and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society.[1][2] He is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation.[3]

While at Stanford, Coggins took creative writing classes with Tobias Wolff and Ron Hansen and wrote the first short story featuring August Riordan in a class for Hansen. This was published in 1986 in The New Black Mask, a revival of the famous Black Mask pulp magazine that launched the careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.[4]

Coggins has worked in the Silicon Valley for such companies as Hewlett Packard and Netscape[5] and although Riordan as a character is something of a technophobe, Coggins' novels often explore high technology themes and Silicon Valley culture.[6]

Career[]

Coggins' first book, , dealt with the theft of chess-playing software similar to that run on Deep Blue and was nominated for the Shamus Award[7] and the Barry Award.[8] described a fictional mayoral election in San Francisco where the results were altered by individuals who hacked the city's electronic voting machines. envisioned an altered version of the bizarre history of the peripatetic remains of Argentina's most famous first lady, Eva Perón, and won the Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category.[9][10]

was somewhat of a departure. A collection of humorous essays describing episodes in his life from school, career, and relationships, it features a number of anecdotes from his childhood in Phoenix, Arizona, including the title essay, "Prom Night," the improbable story of how shy and socially-awkward Coggins brought the homecoming queen of Central High School to the senior prom.[11]

Works[]

Novels[]

  • (1999). ISBN 978-0918395177
  • (2002). ISBN 978-0918395214
  • (2006). ISBN 978-1932557169
  • (2007). ISBN 978-1932557534
  • (2009). ISBN 978-1606480557
  • (2015). ISBN 978-1937495909
  • (2019). ISBN 978-1643960319

Non-fiction[]

  • (2012). ISBN 978-0982948453

Photography Monographs[]

  • (2021). ISBN 978-0918395375

External links[]

References[]

  1. ^ Official Bio, markcoggins.com.
  2. ^ Noir Guy, stanfordmag.org, January 2008.
  3. ^ Artist Registry, choctawnation.com.
  4. ^ Back to Black, Part IV, therapsheet.blogspot.com, November 27, 2007.
  5. ^ Actuate Names Mark Coggins as New Senior Vice President of Engineering Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, actuate.com.
  6. ^ How Greedy Was My Valley?, salon.com, September 18, 2002.
  7. ^ The Shamus Awards, thrillingdetective.com.
  8. ^ Barry Awards Archived 2012-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, deadlypleasures.com.
  9. ^ The Story Behind the Story: The Big Wake-Up by Mark Coggins, therapsheet.blogspot.com, November 03, 2009.
  10. ^ Announcing the Results of the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards, independentpublisher.com, May 25, 2010.
  11. ^ Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters by Mark Coggins, lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com, May 31, 2012.
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