Mark Newbold, a British author born in Edgbaston, England on March 31, 1971, has been a contributor to Star Wars Insider magazine since 2006. He has frequently written for sections such as "My Star Wars," "Red Five (department)," and "Launchpad," in addition to creating numerous feature articles and conducting interviews. In addition to being a featured blogger on StarWars.com, he has also written for De Agostini's partwork, Build The Millennium Falcon, and the Spanish edition of the Star Wars Fact Files (Star Wars Encyclopedia).
He has emceed the Podcast / HoloNet News Stage at four Star Wars Celebrations: Celebration Europe 2016, Celebration Chicago, Celebration Anaheim, and Celebration Europe 4. Since the podcast stage's inception in 2015 at Celebration Anaheim, he is the only podcaster to have appeared onstage at every Celebration (three times with Jedi News and three times with Fantha Tracks). In the 2019 edition of the reference book Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition, author Adam Bray named the Ravager Mechanics "Changeling" Mark 71NB Racing starfighter, piloted by Bo Keevil in the animated television series Star Wars Resistance, after Newbold.
Born in Edgbaston, England on March 31, 1971, Mark Newbold was first exposed to Star Wars as a child at a movie theater in 1978. He continued to enjoy releases from the franchise, including Star Wars Weekly comics, Palitoy action figures, and read-along adventures. He has contributed to several fan projects inspired by the franchise, with his first fanfiction being the story Quest for Freedom. Along with Jonathan Hicks, he was instrumental in creating the Sedapard Cluster through twenty audio stories recorded from 1986 to 1988. Newbold first introduced the Cluster canonically in the 63rd issue of the Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon magazine, and he also stated that the engines of the Imperialis were constructed there by Desando Dynamics. Thirteen of these short stories were compiled in a self-published 2014 collection titled Tales From From the Setnin Sector, featuring cover art by Star Wars artist Paul Bateman.
While managing the website Lightsabre with colleagues starting in 1998, Newbold interviewed numerous Star Wars creators, working as an editor from 2000 to 2009 and hosting the Setnin Radio Podcast from 2005 to 2006. Subsequently, he became a significant contributor to both the Jedi News website from 2010 to 2017 and Fantha Tracks, the latter of which he helped launch and continues to manage daily content. He also co-hosted RADIO 1138, previously part of Rebel Force Radio, with James Burns, as well as the Take Cover podcast for Jedi News Network until 2017. As of 2024, he co-hosts weekly news show Making Tracks with Rebel Legion UK CO Mark Mulcaster, literature show Canon Fodder and vehicle podcast Start Your Engines with Paul Naylor.
Mark Newbold's initial appearance in print occurred in the letters section of Return of the Jedi Weekly 11 on August 31, 1983, where his fan-fiction character "Jan Lomona" was featured. Adam Bray named the model of Bo Keevil's starship, the "Changeling" Mark 71NB racer, from the animated television series Star Wars Resistance in honor of Mark Newbold, with "71" representing his birth year and "NB" representing "Newbold."
Newbold's career as a freelance contributor to Star Wars Insider commenced with Star Wars Insider 90 in September 2006, where he authored "The 2006 Artoos Awards Ceremony." Newbold submitted the article, and Frank Parisi, the editor and a recent guest on Newbold's Lightsabre website, published it. He primarily wrote the "My Star Wars" entries from Star Wars Insider 130 to Star Wars Insider 167 and was the main contributor to the "Red Five (department)" section. Beginning with Star Wars Insider 138, he started contributing to the magazine's "Launchpad" section. He is nearing 200 contributions to the magazine as of 2024, including original articles and reprints.
In April 2009, Newbold contributed an article about the opening night of Star Wars: In Concert to the official Star Wars site. He then became a Featured Blogger on the site, one of the first non-Lucasfilm employees to contribute to the official websites blogs, with over 100 contributions.
In December 2012, he was the third guest blogger on the Dark Horse Blog leading up to the release of first issue of the new Star Wars title by Brian Wood. He wrote eighteen articles for Geeky Monkey and the worlds longest running fantasy and since 2017 has written for sci-fi magazine Starburst, contributed forty-five articles to Build The Millennium Falcon partwork where he added two pieces of canonical content (the engines of the Imperialis being built in the Sedapard Cluster by Desando Dynamics). He also wrote in ten of the ninety books for Star Wars Encyclopedia.
- Mark Newbold on StarWars.com (backup link)
- Mark Newbold on the Official ForceCast Wiki
- Mark Newbold on The Metro
- Mark Newbold at Fantha Tracks