Writing. We all do it, just in different ways. 

My father, John A. Mitchell, a native of Sumter, South Carolina, was an old school journalist and newspaperman and my mother, Audrey McClary Mitchell, from Williamsburg County, South Carolina, was an old South creative homemaker, so my brothers and sister and I assume the creative writing seeds were planted long ago in our formative youth. We grew up in the late 1960's and 1970's during a time of great change and upheaval in the United States and globally, so having a newspaperman show us the world through his eyes at that time no doubt embedded a desire to acquire and understand knowledge, but also to share that knowledge.

My sister, Dr. R. Felicia Mitchell, is an accomplished poet and author, and an amazing professor. My younger brother, Graeme Bannerman Mitchell, is an accomplished craftsman and a soulful musician. My older brother, John Henry Mitchell, had he lived beyond his twenty-first year, would have no doubt been a writer, poet, and an astute entrepreneur. I have had a couple of interesting careers, but always seem to return to teaching and writing. So, this is a continuation of that desire to observe, analyze, reflect upon and comment, with the hope that others will be prompted to engage in the same after reading these works. 

During a career as first a U.S. Air Force Chinese Linguist and then a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer (now retired) and then as a government and commercial national security consultant, I lived, worked, and traveled across the U.S. and the globe for over thirty years. Born in Sumter, South Carolina, my family moved to the beaches off Wilmington, North Carolina, during my early years. I finished my formative years in Columbia, SC, attending Booker T. Washington High School and, after it was closed by real estate interests, graduated from Dreher High School. I attended the University of South Carolina, and then finished my undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland University College, earning a Bachelor of Arts in History. Later, I attended the former US Defense Intelligence College (now the U.S. National Intelligence University), earning a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence. For the last couple of decades, Northern Virginia has been considered home. In addition to writing, I continue to consult a bit and volunteer with the National Park Service at the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.

My first two books are collection of short stories. The first, Hues of Tokyo: Tales of Today’s Japan, is related from the general perspective of a first time western visitor to Tokyo and a few of the surrounding towns. The tales explore, using a range of intriguing settings, the human condition through suspense, mystery, satire, romance, horror, and art. Later, I penned Beach Time: Tales from Several Shores, which revolves around some of my favorites places, beaches and islands, in the U.S. and around the world, with tales running the gamut from mystery and suspense, to romance and fantasy, and from ghost stories to humor.

After a few years, I decided to try my hand at a novel, with the result being Dark Sings a Distant Herald. The seed for this book was planted after a number of visits to the U.K. and elsewhere, that exposed, for me at least, the real question of what did it mean to the British people (aided by encounters with those I was meeting with, working with, and becoming friends with) to be ‘British’ within the modern construct of a unified Europe? It was a hard question for many, and, of course, a few years later, BREXIT was voted on. The story follows a group of youths at Christmastime as they pursue lost truths about their fading traditions in a sort of modern pilgrim’s progress within a not-to-distant future, repressive enclave within England’s shores. The book is intended as a first of series and, yes, the draft of the second book is in the works.

A couple of years ago, after some years of watching artificial intelligence grow more and more pervasive, I wondered, after attending concerts over the years and, specifically, after a mountain music hootenanny at the Carter Fold in Southwest Virginia, what might happen if artificial intelligence assisted music encountered the complex world of music, faith, family loyalty, tradition, greed, and technology? The result was The God Song: Artificial Intelligence Meets American Appalachia. There are a number of twists and turns in the work, so will let it speak for itself.

After the foray into artificial intelligence, I decided to dust off a few stories I had been writing on my time in South Korea and on my involvement with Korean culture and people after marrying into a Korean-American family. The results was a collection of narrated short stories, Hues of Seoul: Mysteries and Suspense in Today’s Korea. The book follows a writer (from outside of Korea) who is trekking up Namsan in central Seoul and falls in with an odd character. The stories are the writer’s attempt to keep his strange host from whatever evil deed might be afoot, so the tales range across a number of genres. The stories are wrapped in a running narrative of the conversation between the visiting writer and the local self-proclaimed goblin-ogre hermit of Seoul. Pick it up to find out what happens.

More recently, during COVID, I decided I needed to finish several stories that had been in draft for our young grandniece and goddaughter who lives in New York City. The result is the latest work, Madylan of Manhattan: Amazing Adventures, which is a collection of short stories based in New York City, Maine, Virginia, and South Korea (of olden days). The tales loosely follow aspects of our grandniece’s life, with fanciful twists added in. Enjoy.

I hope these give you, and your friends and family, both some joy and some things to think about.

- CTM, Updated March 2023

MADYLAN OF MANHATTAN: AMAZING ADVENTURES (SHORT STORIES)

Madylan of Manhattan, Amazing Adventures, is a collection of short stories that capture the joy, vitality, and mystery of a range of escapades, as experienced by young Madylan, resident of Manhattan, New York City. The tales take place in and around New York City, Virginia, Kennebunkport, Maine, and South Korea.
Join young Madylan in these fanciful tales as she ponders what might dwell in a parallel underground New York, embarks on wild adventures as a self-proclaimed ‘evil’ princess during a Manhattan day outing, relates the scary tale of banned pizza in New York, follows the zany antics of a lost toy helped by a chatty Easter Bunny scout in Virginia, visits with summer residents of coastal Maine caught up in an ageless conflict between merfolk and pirates, and falls in with a dreamscape mystery of a daring young traveler coping with all manner of cryptic characters, good, bad, and indifferent, in the far away land of historic Korea. Madylan of Manhattan, Amazing Adventures, is a set of rollicking tales for all ages.

Distant Herald Series: Book One

Dark Sings a Distant Herald: A Christmas Story on Holding Back the British Twilight (A Novel, C. Talmadge Mitchell), released in February, 2014, grew out of a number of visits over the years to the United Kingdom, where one could observe the potential for an environment conducive to the beginnings of an erosion of traditions and long-held values and even the very laws underpinning British democracy. The series attempts to capture how a group of youths in the not too distant future, some years after Brexit, might try to regain those eroding traditions and values before such slip away under the ruthless oversight of a repressive, experimental provincial government. Questions on personal and national identity, the role of government (benevolent or dictatorial), the impact (good and bad) of immigration and emigration, gender roles, freedom versus stability, and other critical, formative issues are laced throughout the series, allowing the reader to make his or her own judgements as the characters struggle to find a balance between tradition and progress in their dangerous search for a new truth. 

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Earlier works outlined in the following pages include two collections of short stories.*

• Hues of Tokyo: Tales of Today’s Japan, (short stories) released in September, 2003, follows a visitor to Tokyo, Japan, and environs as the visitor encounters, often tangentially, a range of tales involving local characters and critical turning points in their lives. The tales are set in a wide range of Tokyo sites, from the plum and cherry blossoms of the Edo Palace and the fanciful escapism of Harajuku, Shibuya, to the artistic hope of innovative centers like Design Festa and the ancient wisdom of the elders of the Hasedera shrines of Kamakura, while exploring the human condition through suspense, mystery, satire, romance, horror, and art.

• Beach Time: Tales from Several Shores, (short stories) released in February, 2005, is a collection of tales that involve the life experiences of a range of characters against backdrops on islands or along beaches in the United States, in such places as California, Delaware, Florida, Maine, and North and South Carolina, and internationally, in near idyllic settings in Korea, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and, even though part of the U.S., Hawaii, as a unique, international destination. Beach Time’s tales run the gamut from mystery and suspense, to romance and fantasy, and from ghost stories to humor.

*Older notes: More details on the above collections of short stories can be found on one of my earlier web pages: www.charlesmitchell.us