At the intersection of literature and journalism, Mark Arax stands tall
* A profile of the reporter, wordsmith and historian By Paul Chaderjian History, great characters, human drama are all elements that flow out of the pen of Mark Arax, who has been telling some of the most interesting and untold stories while working as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times for more than two decades. Mark Arax, considered one of the top journalists at the Times, is also a literary figure in his own right - a modern-day scribe, who was born into the most sensational Armenian stories of the 20th century. He could not help but investigate the story of his family, his people, his native California and turn them into literature, through a unique voice, a narrative voice that is Saroyanesque in spirit, Steinbeckian in scope and as epic as any modern scribe can be. After working in the LA Times offices in Southern California as a reporter from 1984-1990, what made Mark an overnight literary celebrity in his hometown of Fresno was a book he wrote about the murder of h...