Joseph Mitchell (writer)

He is also known for suffering from writer's block for several decades. Mitchell was born on his maternal grandparents' farm near Fairmont, North Carolina, the son of Averette Nance and Elizabeth Amanda Parker Mitchell. He had five younger siblings; Jack, Elizabeth, Linda, Harry, and Laura. The family business was cotton and tobacco trading, and family money helped to support Mitchell throughout his life. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1925 to 1929 but failed to take a degree. Mitchell came to New York City in 1929, at the age of 21, with the ambition of becoming a political reporter. He worked for such newspapers as The World, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York World-Telegram, at first covering crime and then doing interviews, profiles, and character sketches. In 1931, he took a break from journalism to work on a freighter that sailed to Leningrad and brought back pulp logs to New York City.