Review Opportunity: God's Naked Will by C.D. Mitchell

Title: God's Naked Will
Author: C.D. Mitchell
Age Range: Adult
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Burnt Bridge Press
Release Date: September 14, 2013
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18192404-god-s-naked-will-and-other-sacrilege

Many people—preachers especially—flock to church on Sunday mornings where they find it easy to deify themselves while castigating those they feel unworthy of grace. But when religion, spirituality and faith collide with every day life, the pits of doubt, failure, and hypocrisy—like grains of mustard seed—take root and grow, choking out all that is righteous.

The character’s in the stories of God’s Naked Will deal with their yearnings in the context of faith and failure. They reveal they are not deities. Within these pages faith collides with schizophrenia and demon possession, incest and deformity, visions and voices, illness and addictions, nudism and wife-swapping, alternative life-styles and nude weddings, sexual choices and sexual preferences, chastity and perversion, cock-fights and executions, voyeurism and violence, prostitution and evangelism.

The stories in God’s Naked Will make no apologies, respect no persons, and pull no punches as the text explores raw yearnings that erode the base of spirituality, once again proving that Christ did not die in vain—that we all fall short of the glory of God and exist in desperate need of salvation.

C.D. Mitchell is the author of "Alligator Stew," recently released by Southern Yellow Pine Publishing of Tallahassee, and "God's Naked Will" from Burnt Bridge Press. He 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 parents now live on Rockingchair Road. While living on the farm he experienced milking cows, making butter, butchering and sugar curing pork, pickling cucumbers 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. He obtained a BSBA in finance and banking, then went on to attend the University of Arkansas School of Law, completing requirements for his Juris Doctorate in December, 1987. In 2002 he decided to return 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 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. Clayton, his youngest son, has been in remission 10 years. He has another son, Clinton, and a daughter, Candice.

After a short legal career where he experienced the courtroom as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a special judge, CD Mitchell 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 and competed in Memphis in May preliminary competitions, raised quarter horses and coonhounds, canned homegrown pickles and tomatoes, and finished with a professional boxing record of 45-5 with 38 knockouts. Tommy Morrison, the former World Heavyweight Champion, claimed one of his first Toughman championships in fights promoted by CD in Springdale, Arkansas. CD also worked on the locks and dams of the Arkansas River from Toad Suck to Ozark. He has been a pallbearer and a groom four times, but has never been a best-man, and that in itself is a story waiting to be written.

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. He also takes great pleasure in revealing their wonderful character-- as well as their many faults. 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, 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 the United Kingdom.

He is currently working on a novel and revising his memoir titled "This, Too, is Vanity." The readers of "Alligator Stew" and "God's Naked Will" will be given an opportunity to select a character from the stories for CD's next novel.

A strong belief that we all owe much to our communities has kept CD Mitchell busy over the years. He has served as a juror for the Arkansas State Arts Council in Little Rock awarding over $25,000 in Novelists grants to selected applicants. In Alabama he served as the Visiting Writer at the Mt. Meigs Juvenile Detention Facility as part of the Writing Our Stories Program for the Alabama Writers Forum. He has taught at, participated in, and hosted panels at the Sanibel Island Writer's Conference, The Gulf Coast Association for Creative Writing Teachers, The Other Words Conference, South Central MLA, Alabama Scholastic Press Association, The Delta Blues Symposium, Lausanne Collegiate School, and the Hemingway Pfieffer Museum and Educational Center.

Links: Website + Goodreads + Twitter + Amazon

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