​Marcus Spiegel​
[email protected]
Bio
Marcus Spiegel entertained the notion of becoming a lifelong student, but eventually settled for a B.A. in English from the University of Winnipeg, and went off in hopes of becoming a mime. Finding himself not exactly patient enough—and certainly not psychologically equipped—to endure the concentrated attention of crowds, he sold his mime suit to a costume shop and began exploring alternate vocations, perhaps the sexiest of which is his foray into private investigation. Nothing in particular panning out for him professionally, he relocated to Seoul, South Korea, under peculiar circumstances in 2011, and it’s probably best not to say anything further on the subject. Suffice to say, he spent some of his time there researching and writing the manuscript of his first novel, which concerns a troubled Shakespearean actor's descent into thievery and degenerate heists and increasingly more ambitious kinds of fraud while trying to prevent his unraveling into madness. After a few more skirmishes in the Far East (sampling curries at the street stalls of Malaysia, hobnobbing with orangutans in the jungles of Sumatra), Spiegel repatriated to Canada in 2016, for some reason ending up in Toronto on the couch of an old friend. It’s perhaps worth pointing out that upon visiting the house of Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia in 2019, he witnessed what can only be described as a supernatural event in the attic. In the summer of 2023, he moved to Nashville with his wife.
Publications
Farewell to the Damned (fiction)
 Conjunctions (Online)
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Blood From a Cactus: The Dangerous History of Tombstone, Arizona, and the Unusual Things Happening There in Contemporary Times (nonfiction)
Finalist Mississippi Review Prize Issue 2024
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The Unremarkable Earthly Trials of a Balloonist (fiction)
 Chicago Quarterly Review
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The Corporate Jester (fiction)
 Santa Monica Review Fall 2023
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Advanced Studies in Thanatology (fiction)
 Conjunctions (Online)
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Portrait of a Flat Earther (nonfiction)
 Pembroke Magazine Issue 55
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The Inglorious Beatitude of the Mall Cop (nonfiction)
 Sycamore Review  Winter/ Spring 2023
33.2: The Noncompliant Issue
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The Inferno on Prime Time (nonfiction)
 Boulevard Vol. 37, Nos. 2 & 3 Summer 2022
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A Tale of Two Trolls (fiction)
Republished in the 2022
​Pushcart Prize
​XLVI Anthology
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​Century of the Hoax (nonfiction)
North American Review Fall 2021
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 A Tale of Two Trolls (fiction)
Santa Monica Review Spring 2020
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​The Monsieurs of Bobby's
Value Furniture (fiction)
Published in Southwest Review 2019 Volume 104.2 
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​Transtatic Love (fiction)
 Summerset Review Summer 2019
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