Mitchell joseph chill-can
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Although in many ways the quintessential New Yorker, nonfiction writer Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996) always remained close to his North Carolina roots and credited his Robeson County upbringing as the nurturing ground of his passion for storytelling. He was born on a tobacco and cotton farm near Fairmont and continued to own and farm a piece of land on the edge of Ashpole Swamp until his last years. Mitchell attended the University of North Carolina for four years but left for a reporting job in Durham before attaining his degree. In 1929, a feature story he wrote about a tobacco auction caught the attention of a New York editor, and he moved to the city that would remain his home for the rest of his life.
For his first nine years in New York, he worked as a reporter and feature writer for the Morning World, the Herald Tribune, and the World-Telegram, developing his spare, elegant style with beautifully crafted stories about the city’s streets and the quirky characters who peopled them. In 1938, he went to The New Yorker as a feature writer and spent the next fifty-ei
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Joseph Mitchell (writer)
American journalist (1908–1996)
Joseph Mitchell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Quincy Mitchell (1908-07-27)July 27, 1908 near Fairmont, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | May 24, 1996(1996-05-24) (aged 87) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Period | 1929–1996 |
| Subject | Character studies |
| Spouse | Therese Jacobsen (m. 1932; died 1980) |
| Children | 2 |
Joseph Quincy Mitchell (July 27, 1908 – May 24, 1996) was an American writer best known for his works of creative nonfiction he published in The New Yorker. His work primarily consists of character studies, where he used detailed portraits of people and events to highlight the commonplace of the world, especially in and around New York City.
Biography
Early life
Mitchell was born on July 27, 1908, on his maternal grandfather's farm near Fairmont, North Carolina, and was the son of Averette Nance and Elizabeth Amanda Parker Mitchell. He had five younger siblings: J
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What Exactly Was Joseph Mitchell Doing All Those Years at 'The New Yorker'?
Joseph Mitchell, one of America's greatest nonfiction writers, is given an astounding biography in Thomas Kunkel'sMan in Profile. Mitchell, who wrote some of the most enduring pieces ever to appear in the New Yorker, including profiles ofMcSorley's Old Ale Houseand Bowery ticket-takerMazie, was also infamous for not producing anything after 1964--over three decades before his death at age 87. But despite not publishing one single piece during that time, Mitchell kept showing up to work, and The New Yorker kept paying him. So, what exactly was Mitchell doing the last 30 years of his life? Kunkel investigates.
In his long career at The New Yorker, Joseph Mitchell built a reputation as both a distinguished writer and an unusually deliberate one. Throughout the entire decade of the Fifties, for instance, he produced only five stories, though they were among the most substantive and satisfying he would ever write. The last of these, “The River
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