CD Mitchell

About Me

Every year it seems another apocalypse is predicted. Every day we hear of the pending global warming disaster. there was Y2K. The next one was the Mayan 2012. Every preacher on television rants and raves about the end of time and the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ. Preacher Harold Camping went so far as to predict the exact day. After that day came and went, he claimed he had made a mistake and made another prediction. Then he finally admitted he had no clue. No one cared after he missed the second time.
Click on this link to view the video trailerfor "Alligator Stew":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aXsx-APIf0

During the summer of 1990, Iben Browning predicted an apocalyptic earthquake would strike the New Madrid Fault on December 3rd, 1990, devastating the heartland from St. Louis to Memphis.

In Delbert, Arkansas, a fictional town along the New Madrid Fault, the people felt other things were more important than an impending apocalypse--like Wink Gaskill's beer permit application for a new local convenience store he was building.

Faydeane Gossett stated the community concerns clearly: "If we allow him to sell beer, next thing you know we'll have crack houses, whorehouses and casinos on every street corner."

In this story collection, the townspeople barrel towards their date with destiny while dealing with infidelity, lust, sexual and domestic abuse, drug addiction, cancer, family histories, bigotry, murder, ambition, sexual preferences, mental illness, loss, failure, religion, mistakes, local gossip, elections and professional wrestling.

Despite Iben Browning's prediction of an apocalyptic earthquake, December 3rd, 1990 came and went without so much as a tremor, and as with all predictions of apocalypse, the town folks breathed a collective sigh of relief and went about returning their generators to Sears for a refund, pouring their cache of gasoline into their trucks and ATV's, eating their Vienna Sausages, Velveeta loaves, and Spam sandwiches, and dumping stored gallons of water on their front yards and winter greens.

They went back to dealing with the every day problems that make a predicted apocalypse seem small in comparison.

Facing a once in a lifetime catastrophic event, the residents of Delbert, Arkansas, prove that the truly apocalyptic events are the ones they face every day.

On September 15th, 2013, Burnt Bridge Press released the debut short story collection "God’s Naked Will and other Sacrilege": Stories by C.D. Mitchell. The book will be available in Kindle and paper-back editions distributed by Ingram, and Baker and Taylor distributors. Readers can purchase or order the book at their favorite independent bookstores or online through Amazon.com.

CD Mitchell has seen the courtroom as a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, a special judge, and a defendant. A professional boxing career ended with a record of 45-5 with 38 knockouts. Tommy Morrison, the former heavyweight champion, won his first Toughman competition in fights Mitchell promoted at Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mitchell has also worked as a tracklayer and bridgeman for the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, owned a construction company and a barbeque stand, and worked on the locks and dams of the Arkansas River from the Toad Suck Ferry to Ozark. Mitchell has been a pallbearer five times and a groom four times, but has never been a best man, and that in itself is a story waiting to be written. He received his BSBA in Finance and Banking, as well as his Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas, and his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with concentrations in fiction and creative nonfiction from the University of Memphis. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of nationally and internationally recognized literary journals as well as several anthologies.

Why do you write?

From "Why I write Southern Sacrilege."
http://cdmitchell1964.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/httpwp-mep2nw60-c/

"After submitting Job to horrendous trials in order to win a bet he made with the devil himself, God replaced all he took from Job with excess and abundance. If God had not rewarded Job, the story would have been completely different. I write about those God forgot to reward after their trials, those whose mistakes have left them suffering from burdens from which they can find no relief, or who suffer from burdens that, like Job’s, were created from no fault of their own. These are the characters who are truly challenged to find grace. If the reader’s faith is not strong enough to read these stories and receive the messages contained therein, then perhaps the stories can somehow bring them, to a closer walk with God. If not, they will find themselves as lost as the characters I have created. Of course, they can always read a book by Joel Osteen.
Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof!"

Any favorite authors? Books?

Scott Russell Sanders, Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy