Mark Dawidziak biography

Mark Dawidziak Biography

Mark Dawidziak is a journalism graduate of George Washington University, He has worked as a theater, film and as a television critic since 1979. He started his journalism career in the Washington, D.C., bureaus of Knight-Ridder Newspapers and the Associated Press. In 1983, after stints as the arts and entertainment editor at the Bristol Herald-Courier in Bristol, Virginia, and the Kingsport Times-Times in Kingsport, Tennessee, he moved to the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio as that newspaper's TV critic (later becoming its film critic and critic-at-large). He has been the television critic for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1999. A member of the Television Critics Association's board of directors for five years, he has won five Cleveland Press Club awards for entertainment writing, as well as a Society of Professional Journalists award for coverage of minority issues.

Dawidziak is the author or editor of about 25 books, including three studies of landmark television series: The Columbo Phile: A Casebook, The Night Stalker Companion and Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone, his lighthearted 2017 tribute to Rod Serling's classic anthology series. He also is an internationally recognized Mark Twain scholar, and five of his books are about the iconic American writer. He spent 43 years as a television, film and theater critic at such newspapers as the Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. His work on the horror side of the street also includes the novel Grave Secrets, The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula, short stories, and comic book scripts.

Dawidziak currently is teaching part-time as an adjunct professor at Kent State University, in addition to writing for The Plain Dealer. Each semester since the spring of 2009, he has taught the Reviewing Film and Television and Vampires in Film and Television courses. He frequently lectures and gives talks on Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, television and vampires.

He lives in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, with his wife, Sara Showman, and their daughter, Becky.

Mark Dawidziak's website

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