01 — Who I Am

Writer. Artist.
Architect of Worlds.

I'm Mark. I'm an American Dominican author, poet, artist, and designer — based in Miami, Florida — whose work lives at the intersection of horror, dark fantasy, metaphysical science fiction, and emotionally grounded romance.

Miami is in the work whether I name it or not. The heat. The layering of cultures. The feeling that things move just beneath the surface of ordinary life. That pressure is everywhere in my fiction — it's what makes the shimmering soil in The Plot Calls feel like somewhere you've actually stood.

More than any genre, I write for people who are hungry and thirsty for something with depth, imagination, heart, and spirit all in the same place.

My content is designed to move and entertain you in order to do something for you — to hold a mirror up, rearrange a few things inside, and leave as a welcomed guest. Every story I write is a fragment of a larger, living world. Every piece of art, every design, every blog post — architecture for your heart.

I am a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, raised across both coasts of the United States — with a Dominican culture and an American upbringing that never let me see any one world as the only shape of the world. Instead, I found traits that were common across people, communities, and entertainment content that aligned close with me as well as the person I continue learning I am and the person I want to be.

I hold a Bachelor's in Communications and an MBA — earned in just shy of three years (34 months total). I've moved through many different environments while doing what I could tolerate as I built my identity, had new experiences, processed those experiences, and reflected my insights through content I enjoy creating, and consuming the content that gives me the inspiration to express myself. I've worked in retail, fast food, airbrushing clothes, meteorology, government, technology, automotive, insurance, and even theme parks, specifically, Disney's California Adventure.

Each experience taught me something about systems, about people, and about the gaps between us and others, our thoughts, our feelings, and basic human communication and connection.

That fissure and its fractures are where all my best stories stem from. 

It's also where the most useful operational insight lives — which is why the same brain that builds these stories also builds processes, teams, and frameworks that work.

Outside of this work: I travel. I listen to informative political and economic podcasts, play RPGS like Zelda, Dark Soul, Pokemon, Fallout, Skyrim, and Final Fantasy XIV.

I go down rabbit holes that examine consciousness, quantum entanglement, and the architecture of meaning. I enjoy film, animation, art, and anime and manga as art forms. I also greatly appreciate all other forms of art: singing, dancing, acting, instrument-playing, ballet, fashion, writing, design, and so on.

I am, in short, a specific kind of person who likes specific kinds of things — and if you're here, welcome. We might be among a few of the last actual people on the planet who believe in depth and meaning, especially if you arrived here. The proof?

I don't run ads and don't post consistently. I do create consistently however.

So, if you're here, then...

02 — The Flagship Series

Enter the
Content Universe

Everything I build starts here. On this page and then branches out.

The Plot Calls is the entryway to my creative universe — a seven-volume philosophical horror anthology series built around the seven deadly sins. Not as a Sunday school lesson. As a warning. As a mirror. As an entity that has always been hungry for the negative energy released through human thought, human choice, and feeling.

Beyond the call of the plot, shades whisper in data, and a connection forms in the darkness. For now, the one beneath the plot calls in search for a vessel.

Everything I create is connected somehow. My books on Amazon: The Mantleans Anthology, Beyond the Horizon, and The Plot Calls reference each other and the rest of the world they exist within.

03 — The Wider Universe

More Worlds.
Same Signal.

The Plot Calls is the beginning, not the boundary.

My content universe spans horror, dark fantasy, metaphysical science fiction, emotionally grounded romance, and poetry — each project a fragment of a greater, interlocking world. Every series is connected. Every ending plants the seed of what comes next. The reader who stays long enough will see the pattern.

Beyond the books, the universe extends into art and (coming soon) apparel that carry myth into daily life, a growing Substack where I write about fiction, culture, anime, philosophy, games, and how I see the world — and a YouTube channel and Discord for those who want to go deeper. Mark A. Figueroa Presents is not a brand. It's a living mythos. I am presenting that mythos as it unfolds.

I am primarily on Substack and Instagram when I am not creating content, enjoying a good content, or among good company, food, and drinks. 

04 — For Writers & Creators

The system
behind the stories.

The fiction didn't come from nowhere — it came from a set of deliberately built frameworks for how to construct, evaluate, and sustain meaningful creative work at a high standard.

I built these for myself.

I'm making them available for you.

These are not generic writing tips. These are the same tools I use to build a universe with its own cosmology, evaluate every chapter against a professional standard before it ships, and maintain a consistent voice across genres, formats, and years.

They're built for the writer who takes the work seriously — and wants a system that takes it seriously back. These two are the core of my content and they both came about through deconstructing my work after writing my 5th unpublished book and unenumerated mass of multi-genre short stories, character designs, and different journals, reflections, and philosophies I gravitate toward.

All frameworks — plus story templates, episodic content systems, and worldbuilding spreadsheets — coming soon to the store.

Subscribe on Substack or follow on Instagram to be first in line when they drop.

05 — Background

Built across
many worlds.

The depth in the fiction comes from the breadth of the life. I haven't stayed in one lane — and that cross-industry, cross-discipline experience isn't background noise. It's the pattern recognition that makes both the storytelling and the strategic thinking work.

If the work resonates with you professionally — as a collaborator, a hiring manager, or a potential partner on something larger — the full picture is on LinkedIn. What's here is the version that matters to the work.

• ✦
  U.S. Marine Corps Veteran
• ✦
  B.A. Communications + MBA 
• ✦
  Cross-Industry and Cross-Culture Experiences
• ✦
  Published Author — Horror, Sci-Fi & Romance on Amazon
• ✦
  Artist, Designer & Multi-Platform Content Creator
• ✦
  Framework Builder & Systems Designer

06 — What Drives Me

Discipline.
Depth. Signal.

My life reflects the same principles as my stories: adaptability, discipline, reflection, and reverence for the unseen truths that guide real growth.

Through military service, higher education, and a career that has spanned a genuinely ridiculous number of industries — I've kept one priority clear: find the authentic signals in places saturated with noise. And help others find them too.

I'm a lifelong student of philosophy — Jung, Musashi, Dostoevsky, Rumi, Orwell, Morrison. A speculative thinker at the intersections of consciousness and quantum reality as we comprehend it so far. A Final Fantasy XIV player who explores dungeons and chases goals with genuine dedication. A manga reader and anime watcher who takes both seriously as art forms. A traveler who has found that every place you visit is also a place inside you — and that the places you haven't visited yet are already waiting.

I am American Dominican, shaped by two coasts and the weight of my ethnic and native cultures pressing together — and Miami, where I'm rooted now, is exactly the right city for that.

Miami is layered. Alive. Constantly becoming something new and interesting.

07 — Mark's Picks

Things I use.
Things I love.

The store carries things I actually use, read, play, and recommend — not a link farm, not a generic storefront.

These are identity picks: the manga that influenced the mythology, the art tools that go into the work, the games and entertainment that live alongside it.

If it's here, it earned its place with me in some capacity. 

Browse the full store →

08 — Find Me

Let's
Connect.

Whether you're here for the fiction, the frameworks, the art, the affiliate picks, or you want to collaborate, hire, or just see what's being built — there's something here for you. The right conversation starts somewhere. If this page resonated, reach out.