(Butler, PA) “Terrified” as he was of his imposing mathematics teacher, fourth-grader Mitch James nevertheless sat in class printing with his pencil on loose-leaf paper not equations but his rendition of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.
“He caught me,” James said, “and took me out in the hallway.”
James was in tears, expecting to be scolded within earshot of his 15 classmates.
But Bill Hendricks read those 2½ loose-leaf pages, then made a deal with the 9-year-old that day.
“He said if I wrote a new story every Monday, then I wouldn’t be in trouble for what I did,” James said. “And so every Monday I would write a new story and read it to the class. I remember that moment because it was the first time that anyone had ever given me any attention for something I had done well.”
Dr. Mitch James, 40, of Mentor, Ohio, gained attention in December for something he had done well when Sunbury Press published his first novel, “Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale.”
“It gives you confidence that you are not wasting your time,” James said, “that people want to engage with your world.”
Visitors to Butler County Community College can engage with James on Thursday when the author featured in BC3’s Northern Appalachia Reading Series reads from his novel at 6 p.m. in the Heaton Family Learning Commons.
The event in BC3’s $6.4 million, 7-year-old academic and community library is free, open to the public and will include light refreshments.
An open-mic session will precede James’ reading, said Mike Dittman, a BC3 English professor who organizes the college’s Northern Appalachia Reading Series. Copies of “Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale” will be available for purchase for $19.99 cash and signed by James after the reading.
“It gives you confidence ... that people want to engage with your world.”
James earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, and became inspired to write “Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale” while researching the mining industry at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he achieved a master’s degree in literature and a doctorate degree in composition.
Brander, the protagonist in “Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale,” escapes a difficult relationship with his family by moving to Alaska after graduating from high school. Two years later, Brander returns to Illinois to find his mother has died and his childhood home about to be auctioned by his eldest brother.
“He’s sort of wayward,” James said.
Brander will meet a man named Richter, who promises him that the answers to life lay in Seldom Seen Coal Mine. Brander moves to Central Pennsylvania, takes a job at the mine and fails at every attempt to amend his life, James said.
“It’s rural, it’s dark, it’s dirty and it’s violent,” James said about his novel. “And it is, I hope at some level, representative of parts of rural communities that the country doesn’t want to see, or does not see.”
What readers will see by reading “Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale” is “the humanity in the characters who are living in rural communities,” James said. “We see their strength. We see their resilience.”
And their work ethic, a quality James said is likely to resonate with an audience of western Pennsylvanians at BC3.
“Coal mining is gritty,” James said. “It is blue-collar. Salt-of-the-earth. I think it will connect with people. They are going to know people who are like the characters in the book. They are going to think about their fathers or their mothers or their uncles or their cousins. It’s going to feel like home.”
Dittman’s grandfather worked in a coal mine in western Pennsylvania.
“A lot of people around here have that connection to mining,” Dittman said. “Mitch’s reading will give people a chance to hear an author speak to them about their world and recognize that what we do here in Butler County and nearby is important.”
“Coal mining is gritty. It is blue-collar. Salt-of-the-earth. I think it will connect with people. They are going to know people who are like the characters in the book. They are going to think about their fathers or their mothers or their uncles or their cousins. It’s going to feel like home.”
James first attended Lake Land College, a community college in Mattoon, Ill., where as a 19-year-old he lived briefly in his car.
“If there are any versions of me out there, someone else who may want to write or finds out later that they want to write, I think it’s important for them to see somebody who used to live in a car doing things that he has always wanted to do since he was a kid,” James said.
Students in BC3’s writers club are invited to read from their works during the open-mic session, Dittman said. Club members this fall are enrolled in BC3’s business management, computer science, early childhood education (Pre K-4) or general studies programs, according to Jacqueline Kunkel, a former faculty member at BC3 who with Dittman advises the club.
The Northern Appalachia Reading Series event is the college’s fourth in two years.
Dittman read from his horror-thriller “Who Holds the Devil” in October 2022. Angel Rosen, a 2014 BC3 graduate from Worthington, Armstrong County, read from her poetry books “Aurelia” and “Blake” in April 2022. And Damian Dressick, of Slippery Rock, read from his novel “40 Patchtown” and from his collection “Fables of the Deconstruction” in November 2021.
Authors featured in Butler County Community College’s Northern Appalachia Reading Series since 2021 are, from top left, Angel Rosen, of Worthington, Armstrong County; Mike Dittman, a BC3 English professor; and Dr. Damian Dressick, of Slippery Rock. Rosen, a 2014 BC3 graduate, read from her books “Aurelia” and “Blake” in April 2022; Dittman, from his horror-thriller “Who Holds the Devil” in October 2022; and Dressick, from his historical novel “40 Patchtown” and collection “Fables of the Deconstruction” in November 2021.
Authors featured in Butler County Community College’s Northern Appalachia Reading Series since 2021 are, from top, Angel Rosen, of Worthington, Armstrong County; Mike Dittman, a BC3 English professor; and Dr. Damian Dressick, of Slippery Rock. Rosen, a 2014 BC3 graduate, read from her books “Aurelia” and “Blake” in April 2022; Dittman, from his horror-thriller “Who Holds the Devil” in October 2022; and Dressick, from his historical novel “40 Patchtown” and collection “Fables of the Deconstruction” in November 2021.
James, who once stood before fourth-graders on Mondays following his hallway discussion with Bill Hendricks, today stands before collegians as a composition and literature professor at Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, Ohio.
“I remember my classmates as being very attentive,” James said. “Nobody made fun of me. Nobody laughed at me. They would all applaud. That was a pretty big moment.”
