Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago in 1955. His family moved to Southern California when he was four. He attended Catholic schools in Torrance and Redondo Beach. He went on to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he studied writing with George Hitchcock, Barbara Hull and Raymond Carver. He also focused on modern poetry and Medieval Literature.

He moved to San Francisco in 1978. He lives with his wife, the filmmaker, Joan Juster, whose film Alaska Far Away, documenting Midwestern pioneers in Alaska, has won awards at several film festivals and appears on PBS stations across the country.

Mr. Mitchell made his living in the wine and spirits business in San Francisco for over thirty years and was known as an expert on single malt Scotch whisky and Champagne. The recession forced him into another line of work. These days he happily shows people around the beautiful city of San Francisco.

He has continued his studies in the Middle Ages and Modernism and has translated works from Spanish, Latin, Old Occitan and French mostly for his own training and amusement.

He is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in kayak, Blue Unicorn, Lilliput Review and numerous magazines over the last thirty-five years. His work has also appeared in several anthologies, including Good Poems, American Places (Viking Press), His poetry chapbook, Three Visitors, won the Negative Capability Press International Chapbook competition and is published by them. Fishing in a Knife Drawer is available from Fowlpox Press (online and free) and Artifacts and Relics is available from Folded Word Press.He is also a novelist, and three of his works of fiction can be found on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble.

An ardent Giants fan, one of Mark J. Mitchell's proudest accomplishments is that he has had a poem published in Cooperstown.