Lewis Marien was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois, and is a 2015 graduate of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Since July 2022, he has been the sole staff photographer and occasional reporter/page designer at The Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury. In 2024, The Mercury merged with News Radio KMAN (1350 AM, 93.3 and 93.7 FM) which has brought even more exposure to Lewis’s work.

Marien’s first crack at journalism started out with a pair of internships between August 2015 and January 2017; The Register-Mail in Galesburg, Illinois and the Journal Star in Peoria, Illinois. His first full-time job was at The Pantagraph in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, from April 2017 to September 2020.

When not at work, Lewis has been a railroad documentarian through video (an ongoing project since 2008), usually posting results to YouTube. His older brother is Evan Marien, an award-winning musician who lives in the New York City area.

Photos/videos on this website are copyrighted by Lewis Marien, and/or the news outlet by which they were published in.