God's Naked Will (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780615849232)

C.D. Mitchell was born in Paragould, Arkansas, the oldest of 6 children and raised on a 12 acre chicken farm a stone's throw from where his folks now lives on Rockingchair Road. While living on the farm he experienced milking cows, churning butter, butchering and sugar curing pork, picking and cooking poke salad, raising a garden and canning jams and jellies, tomatoes and relish. After living a short while in Michigan and Illinois, his family returned to Arkansas where he completed high school and then attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where he obtained a BSBA in finance and banking, and completed requirements for his Juris Doctorate in December, 1987. In 2002 he returned to graduate school to follow his dream of becoming a writer. His second year at McNeese State University was interrupted when his son began treatment for leukemia at ST. Jude's Medical Center in Memphis. CD transferred to the University of Memphis to be closer to his son during his treatments, and completed his MFA with concentrations in fiction and creative nonfiction. While at Memphis CD served as the managing editor for "The Pinch," the literary journal published by the MFA program. After a short legal career where he experienced the courtroom as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a special judge, CD began his own construction business. He has worked with the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads as a tracklayer and bridge-man, owned his own BBQ stand, raised quarter horses and coonhounds, canned homegrown pickles and tomatoes, and finished with a professional boxing record of 45-5 with 38 knockouts. CD also worked on the locks and dams of the Arkansas River from the Toad Suck Ferry to Ozark. He has been a pallbearer five times and a groom four times, but has never been a best-man. Proud to be called a southern writer, CD takes great pleasure in writing about his home state of Arkansas, the south, and the wonderful people who live there. His stories and essays have been published in several nationally and internationally recognized print and online journals that include The Appalachee Review, The Southeast Review, Natural Bridge, River Teeth, Big Muddy, Redux, The Evansville Review, Story South, Real South, The Arkansas Review, and others. His work has been included in several anthologies, with his story "The Execution" included in a crime anthology titled Crime After Crime published in 2012 in the United Kingdom.