Mark O’Brien grew up in Leeds and defected to Oxford where he studied English Literature before embarking on a career in journalism. He has written for The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Metro, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, The Yorkshire Post, and in international magazines, having worked as far afield as Reykjavik and Beijing.

He is a winner of the 2022 London Writers’ Awards.

Validation from Strangers is his first novel.

Follow Mark on Substack.