Margaret Mitchell: Reporter

Delve into the past and uncover the secrets behind Margaret Mitchell's life! Her early reporter days are covered in detail and shed some light into her writing talents. She has fresh appeal and a charismatic way of reporting on the important topics surrounding the 1920's in Atlanta, GA. A good read!

When former debutante Margaret Mitchell bluffed her way into her first job writing for the Atlanta Journal, the typical society page article read more like a laundry list than anything worth reading. Quite literally, the articles listed dresses, table clothes and napkins. Occasionally, an adjective or two would break the monotony - "lovely" and "attractive" often came to the rescue. Mitchell turned the medium on its head by recounting the events of the day, both big and small, with Southern flair and that sly wit that later made her one of world's greatest Southern writers. Whether Mitchell is recreating a football game played by college girls in a dormitory, or the Italian Revolution seen through the eyes of an Atlanta girl, the characters in this book are vivid and undeniably authentic. That she could achieve this even in the space a short newspaper story proves what a singular talent she was. If you enjoy Margaret Mitchell, the South, short stories, innovative journalism, or all of the above, this book definitely deserves a look.

In this series of columns Margaret Mitchell wrote for the magazine of the Atlanta Journal, we can see the beginnings of some of the interests that were fully developed in the great novel she started a few years later

Completely charming and so evocative of its time and the diamond-hard sensibility of its author, this collection shows that there is so much more to Margaret Mitchell than her single book. Highly recommended not only for Gone With the Wind fans but for anyone interested in women's and journalism history, the Jazz Age, or Atlanta in a simpler time.

This is a rare and wonderful collection of little known and lost journalism by a very under-rated author. The book was published in honor of Margaret Mitchell's 100th birthday (she was born on November 8, 1900) and it is a fitting centennial tribute. Mitchell writes so engagingly about a variety of things--both the frivolous and the serious. Although Mitchell was, of course, reporting for her hometown Atlanta Journal Magazine, and was therefore putatively neutral, her great ability to draw character and see quirky and telling detail makes this selection of pieces from the early twenties seem more like fiction, even autobiography. Some of the slang and diction is dated, but to me that only made it more charming. Nothing could be more different from the Civil War material we all know from Mitchell, yet the sharp eye and flawless style are clearly evident--a full decade before her great "Gone With the Wind."