Mitchell James Kaplan is an American author, recognized for his contributions to historical fiction. He has published three fiction novels: By Fire, By Water, Into the Unbounded Night, and Rhapsody. His novel By Fire, By Water won the 2011 Independent Publishers Award Gold Medal for Historical Fiction. Beyond novels, he has contributed book reviews and literary commentaries to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Kaplan graduated cum laude from Yale University, where he earned the Paine Memorial Prize. His first mentor was the author William Styron. Following his studies, Kaplan lived in Paris and Southern California, and he is currently residing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

His 2010 novel, By Fire, By Water, received numerous literary accolades both domestically and internationally. Into The Unbounded Night, a novel set in first century Rome and about the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, was published in September 2020 by Regal House. His latest work, Rhapsody, explores the life of Kay Swift and her 1920s Broadway circle, including her relationship with George Gershwin, and was released in 2021 by Gallery / Simon & Schuster.