“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.”― James Joyce

Who Am I? 

Mitchell Toews grew up in his parents’ Mennonite bakery in Steinbach, Manitoba. His childhood and later years in this unique prairie community form the basis for his debut collection of short fiction, “Pinching Zwieback: Made-up Stories from the Darp” (At Bay Press, 2023).

Mitch set aside his marketing career in 2016 and dedicated himself to creative writing. Since then, he has published work in over 120 markets in Canada, the US, the UK, and beyond. His stories have produced strong showings in many national and international contests and his credits include four Pushcart Prize nominations.

From the back cover of Pinching Zwieback: “These loosely linked stories read like a novel. Lives are given form by the past but undergo change as the world reshapes beliefs and circumstances. Focusing on recurrent, related characters with a common reality that is small town Mennonite life, this powerful collection connects us to the author’s background and experiences.”

Two other work-in-progress efforts are taking final shape: a second short story collection and a novel (“Think ‘Fargo,’ with Low German accents,”) are moving toward publication.

Toews observes: “My focus has been prairie stories. My forthcoming work continues in that place so clear to me but also draws into other resonant locations, including Winnipeg, the boreal shield in Manitoba and urban characters and scenes from southwestern British Columbia. I am most often described as a storyteller with grit and I wear that tag with pride. My writing comes from the storyteller’s places: the campfire, the backseat on a long drive, and the beer parlour.”

For more on author Mitchell Toews and book reviews for Pinching Zwieback: https://bit.ly/PZReviewsMJTInterviews and follow Mitch on Instagram @prosebytoews and https://www.facebook.com/mitch.toews as well as his website mitchellaneous.com

From the author: I WRITE ABOUT fictional everyday heroes and situations familiar to most readers. Real life. Feelings, characters, and place. I come to writing fiction from the storyteller’s places: the campfire, the backseat on a long drive, the beer parlour.

Writing is something I have always loved. I wrote for work — business reports for Dun & Bradstreet, ad copy, corporate communications, marketing material — but was always reluctant to go “all in” when the kids were little and the mortgage was big. I devoted myself to FICTION in 2015 or so, retiring from my day job in 2016.

Being a writer is hard work. I write every day. I edit, re-write, and submit. I blog. I promote my work and myself online. I created and sold brands and their products and people for more than twenty years so the last writing activity (promo) is the least attractive but, I try to make it fun by using it as an unfiltered, “freehand” way to discuss things that interest, irk, or amuse. I’ve met a lot of great people online this way, so it has an intrinsic value beyond just pitching my writing. 

More on Mulholland and Hardbar: My WIP novel is well underway. It’s about a young man’s flight from the village to the city to the solitude of the Manitoba boreal forest. Early readers and editors have commented: part dramedy; Bildungsroman; coming of age.

“Mulholland and Hardbar is a unique and moving story about an odd pairing of young men, their complex and dangerous relationship, and their need to learn how to face difficulty with courage and the absence of malice. The story follows the four seasons in the boreal: friendship, mistrust, deceit, and violence.”

UPDATE March 2022: Courtesy of The Writers’ Union of Canada and their sponsorship of the Mentorship Microgrants program, I am one of the fortunate co-recipients of this outstanding program. I have partnered with proud TWUC member (and perennial all-star) Armin Wiebe and a successful, professional review was the outcome. Thank you to TWUC (where Author Wiebe and I are both proud members) for this opportunity to learn from one of the best.

In June 2020, I was the recipient of a Manitoba Arts Council financial grant to help with the expenses for an ekphrastic artbook based in Manitoba that features photography and related short story fiction. Covid delayed that project as photographic collaborator Phil Hossack and I were not able to travel but we completed the grant project and are once again working on this project.

“A book of Manitoba portraits and narrative, visual and literary.” 

Some, but not all of my stories recount events and conflicts from the “Mennosphere” —  inwardly oriented communities that can generate wonderful characters and practical — often beautiful — solutions to life’s confusion.

Part of my context is to have grown up in the little town of Steinbach, Manitoba. My great-great-grandfather was, “Delegate Toews,” a unique, forceful, and devout man who was one of 12 emissaries from a group of Mennonite settlements in Southern Russia (present-day Ukraine). They sought refuge as Russia caved in on top of them and their conspicuous isolation. The delegates chose the East Reserve—a parcel of land at the extreme eastern edge of the Canadian prairies. Some of my forebears were shunned by one of the Mennonite churches and—remarkably for that time, in the early 1900s—sued the church in Manitoba court to try to negate what they viewed as an unfair act. My personal history is inextricably interwoven in Steinbach, in Manitoba, and in the Mennonite experience in Canada and beyond.

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Steinbach was created from the aforementioned migration. I, in turn, have created the village of Hartplatz as the imaginary home for many of my characters. It is where vectors intersect: faith and doubt; pacifism in a world at war; honour and temptation; fervour and absurdity; the temptations of the wide welt, and of course, humour. 

“God causes it to rain on Chevs and Fords alike,” as Diedrich, the main character in one of the stories in “Pinching Zwieback” puts it. The way the characters resist, pitting their will against that of their foe—the foe they seek to love—can make for a good yarn.

I build things in my little workshop here at the lake where we live year-round. I spend a lot of time fixing the uncooperative work, damaged digits, and the tools I break along the perilous way.

We return to visit kids, grandkids, and friends/relatives in the lower mainland and in Victoria as often as we can. I am a “Local Indie Author” with the Fraser Valley Regional Library and “Pinching Zwieback” is available at many of their 25 branches and also may be purchased at the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Abbotsford. 

I love to paint and I’ve promised myself to go back to it some more, focusing on Warhol’s fascinating blotted line ink and watercolour mono-printing technique. I am an avid windsurfer (and windsurf hydrofoiler, if you know what that is). I row my sleek shell in the dawn calm. Janice and I cross-country ski and hike and we try to catch a few pickerel and “hammer handles” in the lake. We travel when we can (not that much, anymore); volandos con fragatas.

 

Jan and I reside in the boreal shield just north of the Fiftieth latitude in eastern Manitoba. Our property —like the Penrose cabin in my upcoming novel “Mulholland and Hardbar”—is situated on Métis land: Anishinabe Waki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ  http://www.anishinabek.ca/ 

I have two daughters and four grandchildren.

  

Jan and I owned a manufacturing company for 16 years and I worked in the advertising and marketing side of the Canadian advanced secondary wood manufacturing industry from 1997 to 2016. 

Now I am doing what I love — writing fiction. Living in the wild. (The wild with a StarLink internet connection, mind you.)

Copyright Mitchell Toews ©2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024