Recent Writing Awards​​​​

​​

• 2025 SonShine Awards

* How to Handle Your Emojis won 1st place (unpublished young adult nonfiction category).​

* Adrift won 2nd place (unpublished young adult fiction category).​

* The Christian Writer’s Compass won 3rd place (unpublished adult nonfiction category).

​

• 2025 ACFW KidLit Contest

Lost in a Savage Paradise won 2nd place (unpublished young adult fiction category).

​​

• 2025 Christian Market Book Awards

Awesome Facts About Space won 2nd place (Youth Book of the Year category).

​

• 2025 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards

Awesome Facts About Space earned an honorable mention in the Spiritual/Religious category.

​

• 2025 Cascade Awards

* Mark’s nonfiction manuscript Writing Christian Fiction won 1st place (nonfiction book category).

* Mark’s manuscript Adrift won 2nd place (young adult novel category).

​

• 2025 SCWC Writing Awards

“A Pocketful of Change” won 2nd place in the short story category.

​

• 2025 Selah Awards

* Awesome Facts About Space won Book of the Year in the children’s through young adult category.

* Awesome Facts About Space won 1st place in the “Children’s Literature” category.

​​

• 2025 Foundation Awards

Adrift won 3rd place in the young adult category.

​

• 2025 Illumination Book Awards

Awesome Facts About Space won 1st place in the “Education” category.

​

• 2025 SCWC Notable Book Awards

Awesome Facts About Space was a finalist in the “Children’s and Young Adult” category.

​

• 2024 SCWC Writing Awards

Mark won 1st Place (magazine article category) for “Once Upon a Time . . .” in the Journal for Christian Educators.

​

• 2024 Best Graduate Essay

Mark’s essay “Aesthetics and Ethics within Art” won the writing contest hosted by the Center for the Foundation of Ethics.

​

• 2024 Cascade Awards

Mark’s middle grade story “The Case of the Missing Silver Star” was a finalist.

​

• 2023 Sunshine Awards

Mark’s 7,500-word story “Fateful Decision,” earned an honorable mention within the short story category.

​

• 2023 Higher Goals Awards

In this Evangelical Press Association contest, two of Mark’s Answers in Genesis articles won 3rd and 4th place in the Titles category.

​

• 2023 Cascade Awards

Mark’s middle grade story “The Case of the Mysterious Pranks” was a finalist (published writers category).

​

• 2022 Royal Dragonfly Book Award

Mark’s novel Trapped in a Hot Air Balloon won 2nd place in the Middle Grade fiction category.

​

• 2022 Directors’ Choice Awards Finalist

Trapped in a Hot Air Balloon was a finalist in the Children / Young Adult category.

​

• 2020 Kidz Lit Contest

Mark won 3rd place in the Young Adult fiction category for a piece entitled Lost in a Savage Paradise.