https://atbaypress.com/books/detail/pinching-zwieback
Multiple literary journals and anthologies have published Mitchell Toews’ fiction since 2015. He is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a finalist in The Writers’ Union of Canada’s 2021 Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers, on the shortlist for the 2022 J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction, and his creative nonfiction, “The Mighty Hartski” was longlisted for the 2022 Canada-wide CNF contest sponsored by Humber Literary Review/Creative Nonfiction Collective Society (CNFC). Mitch’s work also made lists (long and short) in several PULP Literature contests and received a gratifying “2nd Runner-up” in the 2022 Raven short story contest.
Mitch’s collection of short stories, “Pinching Zwieback: Made-up stories from the Darp” is available from At Bay Press, Winnipeg. Watch this space and facebook.com/mitch.toews for news on this fiction collection!
“What’s your book about?” It’s a themed fiction collection with recurrent characters and settings. In the autofiction tradition, the book takes a look at Mennonite folk in small towns and the plots, failures, strife, and small victories they experience. The Zehen family, friend Lenny Gerbrandt, and an unrelated Jantsieder named Diedrich Deutsch are the main characters. The collection unfolds in not-quite chronological order from the fifties through to present day to tell a larger story. Many topics are explored including both the controversial and those fondly recalled…
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“No one lives outside of the ramifications of their time.” —Lioba Multer, Ph.D., Translator of “Thirty Years in the Clutches of the Ban” an autobiographical “tanner’s tale” written by Mitchell Toews’s paternal Great Grandfather, Johann F. Toews. Pinching Zwieback is influenced by the truth behind the fiction, the truth behind the friction.
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🟥🍁🟥 Mitchell Toews lives and writes lakeside in Manitoba. His short fiction and creative nonfiction appear in print and online, in places near and far. You may follow him on the trails or out on the water or ice, or more conveniently here at Mitchellaneous.com, https://www.facebook.com/mitch.toews/ Twitter, and ProsebyToews on Threads/Instagram.
A lifelong love of books and storytelling put him on this path long ago and his career in advertising and communications provided writing basics and a feel for the reality of writing: deadlines, criticism, and publishing. He started writing short stories in 2013 and devoted himself to the craft full-time in 2016, hiring London author James McKnight as an editor-instructor-mentor. Formal instruction has also come from university and public library Writers in Residence like Armin Wiebe, Carolyn Gray, Lauren Carter, Lindsay Wong, Katherena Vermette, Frances Koncan, Ariel Gordon, Anna Leventhal, and Nora Decter. He is also active with the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and its many programs.
Member: The Writers’ Union of Canada, Manitoba Writers’ Guild, Winnipeg River Arts Council
What’s bright in the headlights these days?
In addition to editing “Pinching Zwieback,”—20 stories in all—I’m also full-up with piles of regular stuff: short stories, CNF, blog posts, readings, critique circles, courses, judging, and consultations — the full pot of writer’s soup.
My debut novel MS, “Mulholland and Hardbar” is still under construction, following the expert evaluation in 2022 of author Armin Wiebe, courtesy of The Writers’ Union of Canada and their Mentorship Microgrants program.
It’s a gritty coming-of-age story driven by its ambiguous characters. “A story wound tight as a noose, eh?”
—Mitchell Toews, Jessica Lake
P.S. — The hard stuff. The entelecheia diagram below is my roadmap to best produce mimetic realism—both contemporary and historical—in the autofiction tradition, with distinctively Canadian backdrops: urban, rural, prairie, and boreal about belonging, love, and hope.
Google AI defines entelecheia as: “Aristotle used the concept of entelecheia to explain the relationship between matter and form. He believed that matter is not enough to make something real and that it needs a form or function to complete it. For example, the matter of an organism is not enough to make it a living organism, it also needs a ‘soul’ or ‘vital function’.”
Mitchell Toews 