Mark Oshiro is an American writer and blogger. Oshiro is most known for their blog Mark Does Stuff, where they review books and TV shows. Oshiro is also an author of young adult and middle grade novels.
Oshiro is queer and non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.
A more complete list of their published work can be found on their website here
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Blogs
- Mark Reads Twilight (2009)
- Mark Reads Harry Potter (2010)
- Mark Does Stuff (2010–2021)
Books
- Anger Is a Gift (2018)
- Each of Us a Desert (2020)
- The Insiders (2021)
- You Only Live Once, David Bravo (2022)
- Star Wars Hunters: Battle for the Arena (2023)
- Into the Light (2023)
- The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure (2023): A Camp Half-Blood book co-written with Rick Riordan (2023)
Short fiction
- "Hunger", From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (2020)
Tropes present in their works include:
- After the End: Each of Us a Desert is set long after some unspecified disaster, long enough that it's passed into myth.
- Author Appeal: Recurring themes are queer children, fantasy as a metaphor for coming of age, plot twists, and racism.
- Coming Of Age Queer Romance: Nearly all their stories with romance are about queer children or teenagers, since they didn't have enough representation of this growing up.
- Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: The fantasy of their middle grade novels is often there to enable the Coming of Age Story. The Insiders has a magical room that connects to two others but focuses on the friendships and formed from that, and You Only Live Once, David Bravo is a time travel story about learning to accept one's mistakes.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Xochital of Each of Us A Desert takes up people's stories so that their feelings won't attract monsters. Xo hates it because she's forced to carry the burden of a whole town's sins. And it's later revealed that they never needed to give up their stories anyway.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Xochital, a story keeper in a small town, and Emilia, the daughter of the town's murderous mayor in Each of Us A Desert. They start on opposite sides, but find they have more in common than they think.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: The wampa in "Hunger". He went out on a hunting trip, then came back to find the rebel base where his family used to be. His lashing out at Luke isn't just hunger, it's rage and grief.
