Mitchell Blount was born in 1962 in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father is a biology professor at N.C. State University committed suicide; his mother is a homemaker in assisted living. An All- Triangle outside linebacker for Millbrook High School, he received a football scholarship to Elon College, where he majored in English. He met his wife Sara in college at an organizational meeting for the campus literary magazine; they married the day after graduation in a sunrise ceremony on Ocracoke Island “to begin our new life on a new day.” They now have three two children: Drew, age 3 21 ; Lisa, age 8; and Timothy, age 11 28. A newspaper reporter, Blount received the 1988 North Carolina Press Association First Place Award for Community Journalism for a series in the Henderson Daily Dispatch about alternate uses for tobacco. Currently, he is a staff writer for the Charlotte Observer, covering municipal government. After a promising start to a career in journalism, Blount began drinking heavily and was fired from his job as a staff writer for the Charlotte Observer. Sara considered divorce but instead holds his hand at their daughter Lisa’s grave.

—Scott Ragland has an MFA in Creative Writing (fiction) from UNC-Greensboro. He’s had several stories published, including in Beloit Fiction Journal, apt, and NANO Fiction. He lives in Carrboro, N.C., with his wife and two dogs, whom he enjoys sharing the couch with. His three kids have left the nest.

 

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