Mark David Gerson is a screenwriter, award-winning author and creator of The Q'ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels and films.

The MoonQuest

The MoonQuest

The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy is a 2007 fantasy novel by Mark David Gerson.The novel presents a mythical world where storytelling has been banned and storytellers, or bards, have been put to death. The legend in the land has it that the moon was so saddened by the silence in the land that she...

, the first book in the trilogy, has won multiple national and regional awards, as has his book on writing and creativity, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write. In 2008, The MoonQuest won a Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award

Independent Publisher Book Award

The Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...

 as best visionary fiction and a New Mexico Book Award as best science fiction/fantasy book of the year. As an unpublished author in 2006, Gerson won a New Mexico Discovery Award for The MoonQuest
manuscript. In 2009, Gerson again won an Independent Publisher Book Award

Independent Publisher Book Award

The Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...

, this time a Silver Medal, and a New Mexico Book Award for The Voice of the Muse.

Gerson has also been published in several anthologies, including Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.

The MoonQuest, the first feature film in The Q'ntana Trilogy, produced by Anvil Springs Entertainment of Los Angeles and Albuquerque from Gerson's screenplay, will be in theaters in 2012.

A Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 native, Gerson spent over a decade as a freelance writer, editor and broadcaster. During much of that time he was the Canadian stringer for The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....

 and Times Higher Education, then known as The Times Higher Education Supplement. While in Canada, he also contributed to the Montreal Star

Montreal Star

The Montreal Star was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It folded in 1979 following an eight-month pressmen's strike....

, The Gazette (Montreal)

The Gazette (Montreal)

The Gazette, often called the Montreal Gazette to avoid ambiguity, is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with three other daily English newspapers all having shut down at different times during the second half of the 20th century.-History:In 1778,...

, the Ottawa Journal

Ottawa Journal

The Ottawa Journal was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Ottawa, Ontario from 1885 to 1980.It was founded in 1885 by A. Woodburn as the Ottawa Evening Journal. Its first editor was John Wesley Dafoe who came from the Winnipeg Free Press. In 1886, it was bought by Philip Dansken Ross.The...

, The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

 and the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

, as well as to a variety of magazines and to CBC Radio

CBC Radio

CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...

 and Radio Canada International

Radio Canada International

Radio Canada International is the international broadcasting service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . Until 1970, it was known as the CBC International Service and was sometimes referred to as the "Voice of Canada" in its early years.- The early years :The idea for creating an...

. It was also in Canada that he began writing The MoonQuest, starting it in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 and writing most of the first two drafts in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

.

Gerson left Canada in 1997 and currently splits his time between Los Angeles and New Mexico.