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Author John Hanson Mitchell's subject matter ranges from natural and human history, to travel, memoir, biography, and gardening. No matter what the subject, he has become best known for his incisive characterizations, his evocations of time and place, and his unique lyrical style.
Mitchell is the "discoverer", as he says, of a country within a country, a single square mile of land in eastern Massachusetts that was known as Scratch Flat in the nineteenth century. Starting with the now classic cult account Ceremonial Time (1984), Mitchell has written five books which use the same tract of land in one way or another to address the larger issue of what it means to be living on earth in our time.
This singular patch of land, with its deep historical shadows, its farms, and its resident wildlife has been used for twenty years as the metaphorical hunting grounds for Mitchell's explorations. Onto the anomalous, changing landscape of Scratch Flat, Mitchell has thrown virtually all his creative efforts to explore the themes which have obsessed him all his life - time, place, and the endurance of the natural world. He is, in the style of his hero and mentor, Henry Thoreau, a traveler in his own land; he never gets far beyond his square mile, and yet, according to the New York Time's Book Review, his work has provided a "comprehensive view of America, past, present - and future".
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In 2022, the United Nations and others started reporting the true severity of the climate crisis as the Earth passed a point of no return. It was the worst year on record for climate-related disasters, including deadly floods, massive fires, and dramatic droughts, all of which have worsened since that year. John Hanson Mitchell, like so many, felt overwhelmed. He looked to the story of Volatire's Candide, and settled on its famous aphorism: "We must cultivate our garden".
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Newest Work:
The Garden at the End of Time: Getting By in the Age of Climate Change
Bright Leaf, 2025
The Garden at the End of Time features Mitchell's trademark blend of science, literature, and anecdote as he processes both the information he is reading and what it prompts him to do in his own corner of the world. The story that unfolds sees Mitchell diversifying his plantings, observing changes in the wild lands nearby, and meditating on other moments when people sought refuge as they tried to improve stressful situations. With gravitas, kindness, and wit, Mitchell offers a model for maintaining a connection to nature even as it reels from manmade threats.
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