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Mitchell Waldman

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Waldman is also the author of the story collection, '''Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart''' ([[Wind Publications]], August 2011), and the novel, '''A Face in the Moon''' (Writers Club Press, 2000).
Waldman is also the author of the story collection, '''Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart''' ([[Wind Publications]], August 2011), and the novel, '''A Face in the Moon''' (Writers Club Press, 2000).
   
   
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New fiction of the author will appear soon in ''[[Soft Cartel]]'', ''[[The Magnolia Review]]'', and ''[[Spelk]]''.
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New fiction of the author will appear soon in ''[[The Magnolia Review]]'' and ''[[Spelk]]''.
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===Selected Works===
===Selected Works===
====Fiction====
====Fiction====
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* [https://softcartel.com/2018/10/19/clocks-ticking-by-mitchell-waldman/ Clocks Ticking (Soft Cartel)]
* [http://www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/images/ginosko19.pdf Two Tons of Pig Manure (Ginosko Literary Journal)]
* [http://www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/images/ginosko19.pdf Two Tons of Pig Manure (Ginosko Literary Journal)]
* [https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Our-Souls-Issue-2017/dp/1521415161/ref=pd_ybh_a_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B1CY1DR17HVEGT267P36 Glass Slippers (Whatever Our Souls)]
* [https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Our-Souls-Issue-2017/dp/1521415161/ref=pd_ybh_a_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B1CY1DR17HVEGT267P36 Glass Slippers (Whatever Our Souls)]

Revision as of 19:22, 19 October 2018

Mitchell Waldman

Contents

Literary bio

Mitchell Waldman, born in 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, is a fiction writer who works generally in the realist tradition (with occasional voyages into the world of magic realism) and enjoys using dialogue to bring his characters to life. He is the author of the new short story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications, August 15, 2011), which was a finalist in the 2015 Bookbzz.com Prizewriters Competition, was selected as a "Reviewer's Choice" book by Midwest Book Review, as a "New and Notable" book by Newpages.com, and includes the Pushcart Prize nominated story, "The Duke of Broad Street."

Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart has been said to be "a beautiful collection of stories about ordinary people living ordinary lives until various circumstances come along and change everything." (Online Book Club). One critic has said that the stories in the book "startle a reader with sudden, uncompromising insight. They seem ordinary people engaged in ordinary lives until betrayals, accidents, and misfortune put the puzzles of their weak choices and unfair chance into stark relief when they are left with a kind of clarity they might have been happier not to have. Yet these stories are not moralistic judgments. Readers will come away from this book better for having spent time with Waldman’s well wrought characters, all sprung from the heart of an exacting writer gifted with compassion." (Perry Glasser, author of Dangerous Places). Furthermore, in Petty Offenses Waldman has been said to accomplish what William Faulkner called the author's job: "to make the extraordinary seem ordinary and to make the ordinary seem extraordinary." (Hardy Jones, author of Every Bitter Thing, at Cybersoleil). And, it has been said that in the book, "Waldman gives the reader a full buffet of crimes and offenses; from large to small, physical to mental and subtle to spectacular....There's something to chew on and sink your teeth into." (Timothy Gager, author of Treating A Sick Animal: Flash and Micro Fictions). In addition, another reviewer has said of the collection that subtle paradoxes and paradigmatic shifts undermine the reader's sense of stable themes....Waldman's writing stays tight, even concise, and by not calling attention to itself all the more reveals everyday life as taking place on a far grander scale than we imagine." (Paul A. Toth, author of Airplane Novel). Midwest Book Review said that in the book "Mitchell Waldman . . . talks on many topics throughout recent history and the struggles to understand an impossible to understand world, and that [w]ith poignancy and wisdom peppered throughout, 'Petty Offenses & Crimes of the Heart' is a read that is well worth considering, highly recommended." Book Pleasures described Petty Offenses as including "beautifully crafted stories...which can be described as bitter sweet. Each protagonist has a scar of some kind; an emotional wound which dictates their actions and the stories revolve around characters seeking to resolve these issues . . . . Some reach a level of greater wisdom and closure . . . . In other stories the characters do not enjoy the mixed blessings of 'closure', and some border on the macabre . . . . The lesson it seems from these stories is that you can use your life's experiences even when circumstances are beyond your control such as war or poverty and turn them around to move on and make choices or be a victim of your circumstances and allow them to control you. Either way there is a cause and a consequence of any action or choice . . . . Each of these stories can be read as self-contained compositions but I would recommend you read them in sequence to experience the themes to unfold as most satisfyingly do." (Dean Cowan at BookPleasures.com)

Waldman is also the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon (Writers Club Press, 2000), a belated coming-of-age story told from a male first person viewpoint. Waldman's novel has been described as "a Shakespearean-like tale with a twist," as "a story readers won't soon forget," and as "an emotionally deep story that takes the reader so deep inside a lonely, sad young man readers will hold their breath knowing that they cannot escape until the book is finished." The novel has further been described as showing Waldman's "great talent for developing characters who are people you feel you know, then placing them in life settings we can all understand and believe," as demonstrating his "tremendous talent for genuine characters in real life settings," and as showing the author's application of "skill in his flowing narrative complete with a skillful portrayal of psychological grapplings."

Waldman's short stories, poetry, and essays focus in great part on the harsh realities of living in the world today, relationships, broken families, and various social issues. His work also deals, in some part, with the effects of war on families and their participants, as well as with alienation, in some instances in the context, specifically, of being a Jew in a largely Christian society.



Publishing credits

Waldman's work has appeared in many publications, including Ginosko Literary Journal, Whatever Our Souls, Down in the Dirt Magazine, The Flash Fiction Press, Kairos Literary Magazine, Literally Stories, The Story Shack, Corvus Review, Baby Lawn Literature, The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Bond Street Review, The Machinery--A Literary Collection, Baby Lawn Literature, Peachfish Magazine, The Avalon Literary Review. Alfie Dog Fiction, Danse Macabre, The Faircloth Review,Waterhouse Review, Fiction on the Web, The Fringe Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, The Brooklyn Voice, The Cynic Online, Eunoia Review, The Big Stupid Review, Pulse Literary Journal, Litsnack, Down in the Dirt, The Bracelet Charm Quarterly, Blue Ships Magazine, The Houston Literary Review, Milk Sugar: An Online Literary Journal, The Greensilk Journal, Wind Magazine, The Piker Press, The Legendary, Red Fez, trans lit, The Fine Line, new aesthetic, The Battered Suitcase, eFiction Magazine, worldwide hippies, Fiction Collective, Shorelines Literary Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Greatest Lakes Review, Eclectic Flash Literary Journal, Moronic Ox Literary and Cultural Journal, Five Fishes Journal, Ink Monkey Magazine, 13th Story, 63 Channels, Poetpourri, Poetry Motel, Poetic Hours, Poetalk, Poetry Peddler, Poetry Forum, Poetry Forum Newsletter, The Poet's Haven, Woven Worlds, The Advocate, Desperate Act, Malcontent, CWG Newsletter, Verbal Expression, Bold Print, First Literary Review, HazMat Review, Mobius, Innisfree, The Parnassus Literary Journal, Unknowns, Long Story Short, Rochester Shorts, and The Rochester Times-Union.

His work has also appeared in the following anthologies:

  • Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing Witness to the Holocaust (Northwestern University Press, 1998)
  • Messages from the Universe (iUniverse, 2002)
  • Wounds of War: Poets for Peace (PublishAmerica, 2006)
  • Green (MLM 2010)
  • America Remembered (Virgogray Press, 2010)
  • Looking Beyond (Scars Publications, 2011)
  • Prominent Pen (dirt edition) (Scars Publications, August 2011)
  • The Lighthouse: Down in the Dirt Magazine v 152 (December, 2017)


Waldman is also the author of the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications, August 2011), and the novel, A Face in the Moon (Writers Club Press, 2000).

New fiction of the author will appear soon in The Magnolia Review and Spelk.


Editorial roles

Waldman is the Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review, established in 2010. Waldman also co-edited (with Diana May-Waldman), Wounds of War: Poets for Peace which includes the work of many notable writers and poets, including William Heyen, Brandon Wilson and Patricia Janus, and was co-editor (with Diana May-Waldman) of Hip Poetry 2012 (Wind Publications, 2012). ,

Personal life and education

Waldman grew up in Skokie, Illinois, where he attended Niles North High School. He was subsequently a student at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where he studied with fiction writers Mark Costello and Paul Friedman. He later studied at the University of Texas at Austin, for a short time, and subsequently received a JD at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.

He currently lives in Rochester, New York, with his partner, poet Diana May-Waldman.

Selected Works

Fiction


Poetry

* Selected Poems of Mitchell Waldman

Articles and Essays

External links

Retrieved from "http://theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mitchell_Waldman"
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