Born in Michigan under the sign of Gemini (The Communicator), number two of fourteen children to blue-collar parents Patricia and Jack. His biological parents divorced when he was seven. He had a deeply adversarial relationship with both his mother and stepfather, and eventually left home to seek his fortune at the age of sixteen. The first to graduate high school in his immediate family, Marcas moved to Colorado, where he spent the next forty years. He put himself through college at the university of Colorado by waiting tables and working odd jobs in and around Boulder, receiving a Bachelor’s in Marketing and Communication. He earned his Masters of Fine Art degree from UCLA in creative writing.
His early philosophy on life was, “You can’t live life by standing still,” and he thrived by refusing to stay in one place too long. He worked not only as a restaurant server, but as a bartender, exotic dancer, DJ, 9-1-1 operator, fitness instructor, bodybuilder, writer, fitness model for Reebok and Nike, in radio and television, and actor. He appeared in John Badham’s American Flyers in 1985 (walk-on role/extra), where he befriended actress Rae Dawn Chong, who convinced Warner Brothers to hire Marcas as the wrap-party DJ. He was an Olympic training coach, working with Andy Hampsten, Donny Nielsen, Robert Farentinos, Danute “Bunki” Bunkaitus, Sally Zack, Alexi Grewal, Danielle Arnaud, Steve Courson, and others. As a fitness coach, he worked with luminaries Jane Fonda, Martina Navratilova, Chrissie Everett-Lloyd, Buddy Hackett, Kate Jackson, John Oates, Richard Simmons, Carrie Whitman, and Vanessa Williams.
He counts as his creative teachers: Rick Rubin, Dan Millman, Miquel Ruiz, Dr. Elaine Aron, Dr. Eric Maisel, Leonard Cohen, Neil Gaiman, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Roger Hodgson, Emmylou Harris, Isaac Gracie, Pink Floyd, Dan Fogelberg, Moby, William Orbit, Clyde Phillips, Jim Carrey, James Franco, Ryan Reynolds, Prince, Bob Seger, Casey Affleck, Stephen King, Evan Hunter, Jonathan Lethem, Seanan McGuire, Guillermo del Toro, Cormac McCarthy, Dan Simmons, Anne Rice, John Connolly, Ethan Hawke, Orson Scott Card, Herman Raucher, John Twelve Hawks, Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire, Christopher Vogler, William Campbell, Steven Spielberg, Robert Benchley, Hank Searles, Billy Collins, and others.
He relocated to North Dakota in 2018 so that he could focus on his writing career, and plans on permanently returning to Michigan in the next few years.
He is of Irish-American ancestry, whose extended family are scattered throughout the U.S. and Ireland. His family has a castle at Dysert O’Dea (Irish: Dísert, meaning “hermitage”), the former O’Dea clan stronghold, 5 kilometers (3 mi) from Corofin, County Clare just off the R476 road. It was built between 1470 and 1490 by Diarmaid O’Dea, Lord of Cineal Fearmaic, and stands some 50 feet (15 m) high on a limestone outcrop base measuring 20 by 40 feet (6 by 12 m). The tower is adjacent to Dysert O’Dea Monastery. There is also O’Dea High School, a Catholic all-boys high school founded in 1923 and located in Seattle‘s First Hill neighborhood. The school is named after Edward John O’Dea who was bishop of Seattle when the school was built. O’Dea is part of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
When Marcás was in sixth grade, he wrote a short story in which his teacher saw something promising and secretly submitted it to the University of Michigan’s Young Writers program as part of a competition. No one was more surprised than he when it took First Place and earned him a week’s scholarship in their much sought-after creative writing program. He realized then that he would become a writer when he grew up.
And so it went.
In 1976, his family — which now included an educationally-challenged and abusive stepfather — took a vacation to Colorado. Marcás immediately fell in love with the Rocky Mountains and returned there to live after he graduated high school. It was there he spent much of his young adulthood. In fact, Marcas resided in Colorado from 1979 until 2018.
Though he would finally be shut of the horrors of his childhood, it would be years before he worked through that trauma. It manifested in clinical depression and, eventually, a diagnosis of cPTSD and its attendant anxiety and panic disorders. His journey to mental health has taken five decades, but it continues to inform his writing.
“It’s where the darkness comes from. No one can endure a life of that without it affecting him in fundamentally damaging ways. Thank god for writing. It is the best therapy I’ve ever found.”
As an adult, he learned for the first time that he experienced sensory processing sensitivity (also known as a highly sensitive person, or HSP).
He started his career writing historical fiction and mainstream fiction, which is where he began garnering awards for his work across the U.S. He realized, however, that his passion lay in horror and dark fiction. He’d long been a fan of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Shirley Jackson, John Saul, Dan Simmons, and Dean Koontz. So he switched gears and started writing stories that he enjoyed, and never looked back. In order to honor the various genres in which he enjoys working in, he took on several nom de plumes that allowed him to explore the different writing landscapes and still be true to his forever love: horror. He is the author of two graphic novels, one created for the Colorado Geological Survey, and one that is currently seeking publication.
He facilitates writing workshops throughout the US and Canada.
Marcás has been fascinated by birds since early childhood, and they are a theme that carries through most of his writing, either as actual characters in the story, like Fiechin the Spirit Crow (pronounced Fay-chin) in What Waits for Us in Darkness, to the plantation slave educating himself in ornithology in Throwing Rocks at God. He believes that they symbolize ultimate freedom, which is what his characters so desperately desire. He has written papers throughout his educational career on various bird species, from the mechanics of flight to the mythology of birds in modern and ancient cultures.
Early on in his writing career, Marcas worked as a writing coach for up-and-coming authors, as well as working on his own craft. In collaboration with his therapist, he has maintained a second website that honor aspects of his life. You can find it here.
Marcas is a lifelong animal advocate and has worked as a professional canine trainer, animal communicator, and service animal trainer. Dogs have defined his life and his deep love for animals. You can view his canine family here.
Marcas became interested in astrology at the age of 12 when he discovered a book on his mother’s bookshelf by Jeanne Dixon, called Yesterday, Today, and Forever, which opened his eyes to the fact that it was possible to learn more about why his parents were the way they were. His avid interest continued, and he sought certification from the American Federation of Astrologers, and has been practicing for more than forty years.