Mark LaFlamme is a crime reporter and columnist at the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine. He stays up until dawn, sleeps until noon and takes the week of Halloween off each year. His weekly column Street Talk has been named both Best in Maine and Best in New England.
In 2006, LaFlamme was named Journalist of the Year by the Maine Press Association. He is a Kansas City Royals fan living in Red Sox territory, a mark of an intrepid nature. He rides a dual sport motorcycle named El Mechon whom he loves like a wife.
In late 2004, LaFlamme wrote his first novel “Worumbo,” the tale of a young reporter with blossoming psychic abilities and government experiments with mind control at an abandoned Maine mill. A year later, he wrote and published “The Pink Room,” the story of a leading physicist who attempts to use the science of string theory to bring his daughter back from the dead.
In 2007, he published the baseball novelette "Asterisk: Red Sox 2086" and the novel "Vegetation," the tale of a man at war with the world of plants. In 2008 came "Dirt: An American Campaign," the story of a man who makes off with the corpse of his dead wife and in doing so, nearly topples his father's bid for the White House. In October, LaFlamme published "Box of Lies," a collection of short stories. In spite of his chosen career, LaFlamme has no plans to write a crime drama.