The Environmental Unconscious

Steven Swarbrick is assistant professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York.

Mitch Crawford grew up telling narrative, improvisational stories with his brother, using stuffed animals, tiny army men, and Star Trek action figures as characters. This carried forward to adulthood, crafting such stories with his children, as well as reading storybooks, picture books, and young adult literature aloud to all five offspring. He once read all nineteen original Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children books to his two young boys one summer, chipping away at them each night before bedtime. A high school teacher for twenty years in history, economics, fine arts, and computer science, Mitch realized that voice inflection, vocal and kinesthetic surprises, and even reading aloud helped keep his students engaged in course material. Now an actor, model, and voice-over artist, his personal branding invokes the smart, funny, and occasionally aloof dad or guy-next-door, or the serious and principled lawyer, doctor, or businessperson. This personal history and these characteristics have helped develop a sincere, trustworthy voice that resonates well with children's literature, first- and third-person POV fiction, nonfiction, biography/memoir, and self-help books. A graduate of Villanova University with a dual major in psychology and philosophy, and an MA and teacher's certification from The Ohio State University, Mitch does his homework and knows how to relate to his audience. For fun, he played volleyball for Villanova in the late 1980s when short shorts and high socks were en vogue. After twenty-five-plus years of that, he switched to tennis, which takes a lesser toll on his body (well, sort of). Mitch loves hiking and traveling with his wife, sneaking out to Five Guys with step-daughter Grace, and being outdoors with their dogs, Izzy and Grommit.