CHARLES T. MITCHELL
Novels and Short Fiction

Charles T. Mitchell is a novelist and short story writer whose work explores identity, memory, and the pressures of modern life across a wide range of settings and perspectives. His fiction blends character-driven storytelling with elements of suspense and mystery, often examining how individuals respond to forces beyond their control—including technology, artificial intelligence, culture, and time.

Moving between urban and rural landscapes, domestic and international settings, Mitchell’s work reflects a broad narrative range unified by a focus on place, perception, and the moments that shape human experience.

most recent book:

madylan of manhattan: amazing adventures

Short Stories by Charles T. Mitchell

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.

Other Works

hues of seoul: mystery and suspense in today’s korea

Short Stories by Charles T. Mitchell

Hues of Seoul: Mystery and Suspense in Today’s Korea is a series of evocative short stories linked together by a running tale of a life and death battle of wits between a malcontent, hermit-like native of central Seoul and an accidental visitor lured into a terror-laced den of no return on the deceptively tranquil slopes of Mount Namsan at the heart of the Korean peninsula. Like some horrific alley cat toying with its helpless prey, the denizen of old Korea lives to tease, destroy, and devour, while lamenting the demise of the old ways. Like a Korea-based Tales of the Arabian Nights, the trapped visitor, using his gift of gab, strives to delay the hermit’s murderous intent by weaving tales of those very fading traditions and dying myths that the hermit longs for.

The God Song: An Artificial Intelligence Awakening Over Appalachia Way

A Novel by Charles T. Mitchell

The God Song explores a clash of cultures between comfortable tradition and mystifying new science, fueling questions about the role of more expansive machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in music, art, faith, and life. Nestled in the embracing mountains of Southwest Virginia’s Appalachia, one of the birthplaces of old-time and country music, an innocent child of tragedy dances her sorrows away to a new music, birthed out of the gleaming glass and steel of Silicon Valley’s relentless innovation, while diverse, ecstatic celebrants from all walks of life lose themselves in the child’s new music, carrying them to new heights of individual and collective zeal, as technology unapologetically pushes its limits.

Dark Sings a Distant Herald: A Christmas Story on Holding Back the British Twilight

A Novel by Charles T. Mitchell, as C. Talmadge Mitchell

Britain, a number of years in the future, some time after Brexit, is on the verge of the sunset of empire feared since the chaos of the post-WWII years, to include within the very borders of the home isles. Disillusioned, politicians have allowed the English Midlands to be absorbed into an experimental opportunity zone with increasingly repressive, separate regulations and practices that gradually erode the relationship between the zone and Britain at large. Dash with a group of friends across the wintry English countryside in search of a secret celebration as they attempt to evade zone henchmen, with surprise help from a range of characters; Sam, son of the zone’s founders; Emma and her elite team of River Welland Guards; Giorgos, an amicable Greek transporter and smuggler; Naomi and Bogart, siblings in a colony of artsy dissenters; a Persian innkeeper and, Elika, his violinist daughter; holy men from various faiths; an anachronistic ferryman; latter-day assassins who slip in and out of the zone like ghosts; and other accidental allies. Step through the wicket gate and let the storyteller in this first book of the Distant Herald series take you on a fast-paced journey in search of lost traditions, misplaced identity, new friendships, and alternatives to the gathering twilight in the green and pleasant land. (2014)

Beach Time: Tales from Several Shores

Short Stories by Charles T. Mitchell

Beach Time is a powerful collection of stories weaving a tapestry of the shore as a place of reflection, a sanctuary for addressing life's challenges and opportunities, and as a point of departure for life's many journeys. Whether finding romance among the canals and lanes of magical Venice, facing life, death, and ghosts along the Carolina coasts, honeymooning in the south of Portugal, or solving mysteries in the Greek isles (Crete, Spinalonga), the stories will hold your interest across the miles and years. Additional tales speak to youth's desire to find direction in life, whether in the beach towns of Florida, at a Buddhist shine on Cheju (Jeju) Island, Korea, or along the North Shore of Oahu. Darker tales reveal how outcasts prey upon the young or confused in the chaos of the beach. Beach Time can be read straight through, engaging the themes linking the stories, or each story can be cherished individually as you travel to multiple shores in the US, Asia, and Europe-to be entertained by whimsical tales that both amuse and provoke deep thought about life's relationship with that in-between space where the land meets the sea and the sky. (2005)

Hues of Tokyo: Tales of Today's Japan

Short Stories by Charles T. Mitchell

Hues of Tokyo is a haunting collection of short stories with a backdrop of one of the world's most interesting cities. As you travel with visitors and natives through the streets of Tokyo, you will puzzle through the surreal encounter of a first time visitor to Tokyo, join a salary man who is looking for life beyond the company, or hold your breath as a young girl tries to find a way out of a traumatic abuse cycle. Additional tales speak to lost love, the blindness of greed and redemption of fair play, and the loss of an old friend to modern encroachment. Several provocative stories look to Japan's history for inspiration in today's fast-paced society. Hues of Tokyo can be read straight through, as a whole work with interlocking themes, or each story can be cherished individually as you enter the world of a complex city of intrigue and history. However you approach the network of stories, you will be entertained by whimsical tales that both amuse and provoke deep thought about the relationships among past, present, and future-in Tokyo, and beyond. (2003)

GALLERY

Photos from Appalachia and beyond, relevant to The God Song: An Artificial Intelligence Awakening Over Appalachia Way.