Biff Mitchell (born 1947) is a novelist, satirist, and humorist. Born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Mitchell graduated from the

University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick, Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public un ...

with an honors degree in English literature in 1974. After college, he returned to his hometown and worked at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

bookstores on the Erindale Campus. He returned to

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic Canad ...

in 1975 and worked at a variety of jobs. The character studies he made during these years formed most of the characters in his first novel, ''Heavy Load'' (2000). Mitchell has described the book as the world's first "laundromance", "stories a laundromat would tell if it could talk."Mitchell, Biff
Biff Mitchell Writes World’s First Laundromance
March 18, 2005. Retrieved April 21, 2007. In 1993, he started work at a computer-based training company, FirstClass Systems, which later became LearnStream. His experience with these two companies inspired his second novel, ''Team Player'' (2001). He left LearnStream in 2001 to work for another eLearning company, Engage Interactive. While he was at Engage, he finished his third novel, ''The War Bug'' (2005). In 2005, Mitchell served as International Spokesperson for Read an eBook Week, during which time, he worked with

Michael S. Hart Michael Stern Hart (March 8, 1947 – September 6, 2011) was an American author, best known as the inventor of the e-book and the founder of Project Gutenberg (PG), the first project to make e-books freely available via the Internet. H ...

, founder of

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

, on a "Brief History of Project Gutenberg". Mitchell was a featured writer/instructor at the 2006 Maritime Writers' Workshop & Literary Festival in

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

. Mitchell lives in Atlantic Canada.

Bibliography

*''Heavy Load''. Australia: Jacobyte Books. 2000 *''Team Player''. Australia: Jacobyte Books. 2001 *''Smoke Break''. Echelon Press. 2001. *''The Baton''. Echelon Press. 2002. *''The War Bug''. Double Dragon Publishing. 2005. *''eMarketing Tools for Writers, 2nd Edition''. Fictionwise. 2005. *''Surfing in Catal Hyuk''. 2005. *''Twisted Tails: An Anthology to Surprise and Delight''. Double Dragon Publishing. 2006. *''Twisted Tails Two: Time On Our Hands''. Double Dragon Publishing. 2007.

References

External links

"Brief History of Project Gutenberg"

Interview and review of Smoke Break by Imprint in Imprint Online (October 31, 2003)
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080408072002/http://www.sassoonfellowship.org/tregolwyn/id153.html Review of The War Bug by Lesley Rice in Tregolwyn Reviews (November 2004)br>Review of Team Player by Timothy Mark in Tregolwyn Reviews (November, 2002)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Biff 1947 births Living people Canadian male novelists University of New Brunswick alumni Writers from Toronto