Mark Lovewell grew up in various communities of his birth province, Newfoundland. He also lived in Bermuda before moving to Alberta as a teenager. He attended high school in the city of Red Deer,and studied undergraduate economics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.Moving to Ontario,he completed his M.A. in Economics at the University of Toronto. He spent several years at Balliol College, Oxford University, before returning to Toronto. In 1981, he began his career at Ryerson University. His long-time experience teaching Ryerson's introductory Microeconomics and Macroeconomics courses led him to write Understanding Economics.
       During part of his time at Ryerson, Mark was connected with the University's distance education arm, Open College. He served as Open College's senior tutor and worked intermittently as a broadcaster on Toronto's classical, jazz, and education radio station (now JAZZ-FM). More recently, he helped develop Ryerson's International Economics degree program and for several years served as the program's coordinator. In 2003, he became director of Ryerson's new Arts and Contemporary Studies program, and he currently teaches one of this degree's foundation courses, Ideas that Shape the World. This course gives him a chance to focus on the theories of famous Canadian thinkers such as Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Harold Innis.
       In addition to his career-related activities, Mark has interests in literature, the arts, and public policy. He is a co-publisher of the national book review magazine, the Literary Review of Canada. Helping administer the magazine and contributing frequent articles to its pages are two of his main leisure activities. For the past twenty years he has lived in the heart of downtown Toronto; he is an avid fan of the city's many cafés and restaurants. He also derives great enjoyment from Toronto's cosmopolitan blend of races and cultures
    Examples of Mark's journalism in the Literary Review of Canada and elsewhere can be found at his personal website.