Steve Mitchell

Steve Mitchell, a writer and journalist, has published in CRAFT Literary, entropy, december magazine, and Southeast Review, among others. His novel, Cloud Diary, is published by C&R Press. His book of short stories is The Naming of Ghosts from Press 53. He is a winner of the Curt Johnson Prose Prize and the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Prize. He has a deep belief in the primacy of doubt and an abiding conviction that great wisdom informs very bad movies. He’s co-owner of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Editor at Scuppernong Editions.

Praise for The Naming of Ghosts

"What I admire most about Steve Mitchell's stories is the sheer beauty of his melancholic prose. His voice is outstanding and will stay with you for a long time after you finish his book."

—Peter H. Fogtdal, author of The Tsar's Dwarf

“Steve Mitchell's lyrical prose and beautifully crafted stories haunt the reader long after the final pages. His characters are so full and fascinating, and the urgency of their need to connect is so strong.  Poignant, inspiring, and compelling, The Naming of Ghosts is the finest collection of stories out there.”

—Frances Badgett, fiction editor at Contrary Magazine

“Steve Mitchell’s stories seem to play out in dimensions that fluidly interconnect our palpable and dreamy selves. Whether they “stroke waves of heat into [our] flesh” as in “Dandelion,” or happen “when the world had darkened so deeply that only tears, and more tears, would soften it at all” as in “Wave,”  we often arrive at transformation without conscious knowledge of how we were transported. Mitchell’s storytelling is remarkable in its hypnotic rhythms, in the unique voice. Story after story in The Naming of Ghosts stays with us long after the ending. This is an impressive collection that must be read, and read again.”

—Alexander Pepple, Editor of Able Muse and Able Muse Anthology