Mark Rentfro was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, where he graduated from St. Joseph Academy. He received a B.A. in English from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After college, Mark served for two years as the Youth and Family Minister at The Episcopal Church of the Advent in Brownsville. Mark left Brownsville again for school in the fall of 2010, this time to pursue an MFA in creative writing at Northwestern University.

He now lives in Chicago with his fiance Amanda Morris, her cat Oliver, and his dog Penny. His fiction has been published in The New Plains Review (Spring 2013), and he blogged about bookstores for TriQuarterly Online. He is still working on his MFA at Northwestern, and works full time in the department of neurobiology at Northwestern. Between work, school, and wedding planning, Mark enjoys day-old Tony Kornheiser podcasts, Bruce Springsteen records, Bulleit bourbon, and baseball.