Mark Wallace is the author and editor of a number of books of fiction, poetry, and essays. His most recent novel, Crab, was published in 2017 by Submodern Books. Other recent publications include Haze: Essays, Poems, and Prose (Edge Books 2004), and a book-length prose poem, Notes from the Center on Public Policy, and a novel, The Quarry and The Lot. Temporary Worker Rides a Subway won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award and was published by Green Integer Books. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections, Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s, and A Poetics of Criticism.

Mark Wallace is this year’s featured guest presenter for the annual Lester Bangs Memorial Reading, which honors influential music journalist, author, and musician, Lester Bangs. Bangs, an El Cajon native and Grossmont College alumnus, is widely credited for having coined the terms "punk" and "heavy metal.” In 2009, Grossmont College officially honored Bangs’s international celebrity status by dedicating to him a bronze "Walk of Fame" plaque, located in the Main Quad in front of the Tech Mall.

Grossmont College 2024 Fall Reading Series flyer