Clayton Bradshaw-Mittal
Clayton Bradshaw-Mittal (they/them) is a queer, previously unhoused veteran who writes queer, working-class fiction and nonfiction. Their work has been a finalist for the Kinder-Crump Award for Short Fiction at Pleiades, a semifinalist for the Driftwood In-House Story contest, nominated for the AWP Intro Journal Project, and the Publisher’s pick in an issue of Barren Magazine. In addition, they were selected as a 2021 Emerging Artist by the Partners of the Arts at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Bradshaw-Mittal is an alum of the Tin House Winter workshop, holds a BA in English with a minor in Creative Writing from Sam Houston State University, received an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University, and recently earned their PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi. They will attend a writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Spring 2024.
While working on their MFA and PhD, Bradshaw-Mittal operated as a teaching artist and curriculum developer for Art Spark Texas and Down South Word of Mouth, working with disabled and incarcerated veterans to write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the Burdine Johnson Foundation to develop programs and curricula that assisted veterans through creative approaches to rehabilitative processes and modes of creative expression.
Currently, their fiction can be found in or is forthcoming from Fairy Tale Review, F(r)iction, Green Mountains Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Saltbush Review, Remington Review and other places. Other work appears in the Rumpus; Barrelhouse; Consequence; Barren Magazine; War, Literature, and the Arts; and elsewhere. Upon acceptance of their story “The Ungrateful Dead” in the Rainbow Issue of Fairy Tale Review, Benjamin Schaefer said it “felt like an important story, as well as piece of remarkable writing.”
Bradshaw-Mittal is writing a magical-realist story collection titled SOFT GOODBYES THROUGH BROKEN VEILS, from which “The Leaky Roof” is drawn, and a speculative novel focused on queerness within three generations of a working-class Texas family titled NOSTALGIC FOR TOMORROW.
Originally from Texas, Bradshaw-Mittal now splits their time between Cincinnati, Ohio, where they teach at the University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash, and Athens, Ohio, where they live with their partner and chocolate lab while serving as Managing Editor of New Ohio Review.