Each semester, the Writing University hosts the 5Q Interview series with authors from the University of Iowa Press. We sit down with UI Press authors to ask about their work, their process, their reading lists and events. Today we are speaking with Tom Mitchell, the author of Early Stories by Tennessee Williams (University of Iowa Press, 2025.)
Tom Mitchell is Emeritus Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois and scholar-in-residence for Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. Mitchell recently edited Early Stories by Tennessee Williams, a collection of thirty stories set in Missouri, published by the University of Iowa Press. He has adapted and staged “St. Louis Stories,” “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?,” “Men from the Polar Star,” and “Amor Perdido/Lost Love,” for Tennessee Williams festivals in Provincetown, MA, New Orleans, LA, and St. Louis, MO. He has also led tours of sites connected to Williams’s life and career in the Central West End and Grand Center areas of St Louis as well as University City. He was Associate Head of the Theatre Department at the University of Illinois and chaired the Acting Program. Tom also chaired the Summer Theatre Program for the Interlochen Center for the Arts and served on the National Selection Team for the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about your new book Early Stories by Tennessee Williams?
This book is a collection of short stories written in the 1930s when the American playwright, Tennessee Williams, was still a young man living in St. Louis. As editor, I gathered the stories from collections of Williams works at the University of Texas and Harvard University. The process of editing included sifting through Williams’s original notes and revisions to ascertain the most effective telling of each story. I have also written an extensive introduction, conclusion, and notes on the individual stories setting them in relationship to the times, place, and biographical significance. Thomas Keith, another Tennessee Williams scholar, provided an essay on “Manifestations of the Erotic” that examines how young Tennessee Williams expressed his sexuality. Although written when Williams was in his twenties, and had not yet received national recognition, the early stories display talent and confidence. Like his plays, the stories focus on characters with complex emotional lives. Many of them are like miniature dramas.
2. What was the inspiration for this work?
I was a professor of acting and a director in the BFA/MFA Theatre Program at the University of Illinois. During my time there I was able to stage six of the earliest full length plays by Tennessee Williams – two of them for the first time since Williams had written them in the 1930s. My preparation of those plays brought me into contact with the archival holdings at Texas and Harvard. I was struck by the short stories and felt that it would be very helpful for scholars and theatre artists to have access in order to more fully understand the author of plays like The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar Named Desire.
3. Do you have any plans for readings or events for this book, either in person or virtual?
We made a presentation of stories from the book at the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, and will follow up with more presentations in St. Louis, Provincetown, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. I hope to expand presentations to libraries and bookstores in the Midwest and conferences on 20th century literature.
4. What are you reading right now? Any books from other university or independent presses?
At the moment I am reading Facing the Abyss: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s by George Hutchinson. It is published by Columbia University Press. I am also reviewing a new book from the University of Kansas Press. It’s titled A Grand Day: From the Diaries of Lulu Schwanbeck, edited by Veda Rogers. The book is an annotated diary of a farm woman in western Kansas from 1935 to 1955. It is fascinating to compare “Lulu’s” daily experience with the experience of young Tennessee Williams in 1930s St. Louis.
5. What is your writing routine? Do you have a daily routine?
I try to read and write most mornings. It’s my habit to have several projects in the works at the same time: writing projects, adaptations of Tennessee Williams for theatrical presentation, directing and teaching opportunities.
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BUY THE BOOK: Early Stories by Tennessee Williams