Frequently Asked Questions!

(E. Mark Mitchell is a loquacious maximalist. To his mind, there’s never a sentiment expressed in 6 words that can’t be equally expressed in 60. Therefore, short story writing is difficult, but if boiling a story down to its essentials makes it more powerful, then that’s a worthwhile effort. Mr. Mitchell has many unrelated nicknames in use amongst his friends, who are scattered across several countries on several continents. He currently lives in Chicago with his lovely wife and his adorable and brilliant giant mutant daughter.  What are some of the questions he regularly encounters?  Let's see!)

Q: What does the "E." stand for?

A: "E." is for "Edward"; that's good enough for me.  As it happens, Edward is something of a family name; there was an Edward Mitchell on the Mayflower, with his father Experience, and there was a long line of Edwards from then on in America until my great-grandfather.  So I was named Edward as a family tradition.

HOWEVER!

My parents never called me Edward; I was always Mark.  I was raised as Mark, I self-identify as Mark, and I spent the first few days with every teacher throughout my entire educational career having to correct them as to what to call me, and if someone were to call me "Edward" or "Ed" or "Eddie," it doesn't make me mad, but I don't recognize it as "me."  So basically when it comes to my annoying name mishap: I accuse my parents.

I do feel it's important to acknowledge that I do have a first name, so I use my first initial; there are numerous examples of authors and other personages doing the same, and I frequently hope that by doing so, I can encourage people to just call me by the name I self-identify with.  One day it'll work.  One day...

Q: What are your nicknames, and how did you get them?

A: I always thought nicknames were cool, and tried to give myself one in grade school, but that usually sucks, so I gave it up in high school.  When I hit college, the first night in the dorms, the local freshmen gathered up in the central lounge and did the going-around-learning-names thing.  I was one of the friendly types (read: wiseacres) who would crack jokes and make good-natured comments with other people.  There was this one girl who said her name and said everyone calls her <nickname>, and we were like, well, do you want us to call you that?  And rather than saying yes or no, she just goes "Well, everyone calls me that." Which: red flag, right there, but also leads to more questions.  Do you like that name?  How do you feel when someone calls you that?

So I'm sitting on the floor near the end of one of the couches, and the name game goes past me, then comes back.  "Oh, we're sorry, we skipped you!  I guess that makes you Skip."  Then it was the "Do you like that name?  How do you feel when someone calls you that?"

So I got "Skip" purely by accident, a fluke, and that stuck with me for a number of years.

Then, years later, I was doing my usual Friday evening comic-book buying at my favorite shop down in St. Petersburg, FL, where I lived, and I was talking to my friend, Jack F., the comics guy for the shop, and he kept calling me Mr. Mitchell.  I was like, Jack, you've known me for 2 years, I hang out with you and the other folks who drop by until the shop closes on Friday, you've got to get less formal than that.  But he didn't want to call me Mark, or Skip, so he eventually picked "Mitch," based on my last name.  Which I enjoyed more than Skip because: actually relevant to my real name, which is cooler than a mere accidental tagging.

So when I moved to Chicago, I went by Mitch in grad school.  One of my professors was introducing the class to a visitor and came by me and introduced me as Mitch Mitchell, and kind of stumbled; it wasn't until some months later at a They Might Be Giants concert that they referenced Mitch Mitchell as the drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.  And now I know what my professor must have listened to in his youth.

I also am on some message boards and websites, and I occasionally get called by my web-handle on the occasions where we meet in person; this is fine by me, and in fact helps me keep people straight on occasion.

Q: Why haven't you published more? 

Well, it's not for lack of trying.  But I'm working full time, and helping to raise a family, and not everything I write sells particularly well, sadly enough.  I've been lucky with Analog so far, and I keep trying to come up with stuff for other magazines, as my inspirations are not purely hard-SF, but so far very little is going.  Not having things sell tends to kill my momentum, just because selling things gives me extra motivation, and without that jolt, my output languishes back to its normal lazy, lazy levels.  But I'm working on it.

And that's all the questions we currently have for the FAQ!  Thanks for reading!