Lewis Marien was born in Decatur, Illinois. A 2015 graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, he has been the sole staff photographer and occasional reporter/page designer at The Manhattan Mercury, the newspaper of Manhattan, Kansas, since July 2022.

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.