[…] From Wikipedia: The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best “poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot” published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit works they have featured. Anthologies of the selected works have been published annually since 1976. It is supported and staffed by volunteers.
My story, “Sweet Caporal” about a morning of fishing on Big Whiteshell Lake has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Editor Robert Boucheron on behalf of the quarterly literary journal, Rivanna Review, of Charlottesville, Va.
This is my third Pushcart nomination, the first from a U.S. periodical. It is the second time a version of “Sweet Caporal” has been nominated.
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I’ve assembled a collection of short stories to present to small presses in Canada. My hope is that I can attract a skilled, smart, simpatico partner to work with and publish the collection. I have several unpublished works and just over 90 published stories from which to choose.
I curated the stories into a themed collection and they are mostly those tales I have written that I consider “MennoGrit.” I define this in a sloppy way — like when you have to saw a board with your left hand:
Stories about real life. Ordinary people who encounter difficult situations and respond in a mannerincommensurate with their simple station in life. Allegedly simple.
“So, what’s your book about?” is the question that everyone from agent to publisher to the person in the line at the pharmacy, pimple cream in hand, might ask.
Good question. To better understand this I pulled up the manuscript and made a list of the themes or messages that are at the core of each story. I was surprised by what I found. Here is that Thematic Table of Contents:
Loyalty…toxic male behaviour
Women’s rights in a patriarchy
Growing up…responsibility…saying no
Friendship and its obligations
Pacifism…courage
Bullying…courage
Regret
Womanhood…courage
Right and wrong…courage
Racism…insularism
Forgiveness…alcoholism
Nativism…equality
Class struggle
Alcoholism…class struggle
Pacifism
Toxic religion…abuse of authority
Deceit…class struggle
Mental health
Faith…life and death
Cruelty…guilt
Empathy
Abuse of authority
Life and death
Written as they are in the mind of my times, I can focus ice cold on these themes. They come from the lives that exist in all places, including those I know best. There is no “trending” in these familiars, where I am the son — both homegrown and prodigal — only observations scooped up and saved in a coffee can, resting placid and true on the high shelf where they have cured; some softening, some hardening.
The working title of the book is “Pinching Zwieback — Prairie Stories.”
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the border of pastel yarrow, my footprints and the hollows made by my knees and the heels of my hands, me concentrating on staying awake while ravens oversee, soaring, violet mystique wings outstretched
Does the sky remember
glaring down on the old drunk, in his yellowed Stanfields, lying in a soaking puddle in the backyard morning, sprinkler ran all night and he drowned but didn’t know it
Does the backstop remember
me up on the mound, black socked Juan Marichal leg kick, wild as an air hose when the nozzle breaks off, baseball’s the next perfect thing after the last one blew apart
Does the kitchen floor remember
her pinwheeled on the cornflower tiles, alone and snoring, pajama top only, mustard on her pointed chin, the yellow badge of surrender, but what would I know of it?
Do the unknowing remember
all the things they can’t know when they say “Good for you…” but judge with unwrinkled eyes and tiny fists shooting venom, like Marvel halftone beams white hot with denial
Does the delivery room remember
my red moustache in an eighties flow, holding those babies so precious, waited through all the bad befores and here they are, perfect and undefinable, all worth it
Does the shy boy remember
how it felt to build the rink, leaves falling amber, nailing the boards, dragging the curved corners flat, dreaming of me yet to come, faceless, so I took his with its smiling eyes
Does the upstairs bedroom remember
her reading from Grimm’s, cover corners worn like the tongue of a boot, eyes the sagging hue of fall light but still life giving and aglow, “Who’s that walking across my bridge?” and the silver fillings glitter in the laughter of it
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I have good news. “Fetch,“ a short story I submitted to THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA was chosen from a pool of 785 contestants as a finalist in their 2021 Emerging Writer Short Prose Contest.
Phew! Feels good to say it. This was my year to enter contests and I was getting a bit (okay, a lot) pouty faced about it. It’s not the not winning that is so bad (I’m lying, that is bad) it’s more the dreadful silence. Not a creaky cricket. Not a fractional decibel, just the buzzing silence that means, well, it means nothing.
So I did not actually win this nation-wide contest but I was recognized and their procedure is sufficiently difficult to make me crow a little. I can take it as a victory and move along.
Where and to what?
To my work-in-progress novel — thanks for asking — which is in the late stages of final edits, Beta readers, and getting down to the QUERY level. It’s a 85K-word lit fic called “Mulholland and Hardbar” and you’d describe it in a sentence as, “Fargo, with Mennonite accents.”
Next: A collection of short stories I’m querying. It’s a group of stories that run to the GRITTY end of the register and they’re about Mennonites, so, I have coined a category for it: “MennoGrit.” This short story collection includes the aforementioned most excellent story, “Fetch,” and a whole bunch of others, new and old, many that are EVEN BETTER. (Always be selling?)
🙂
Last in this trio of writing projects I have on the go is a new EKPHRASTIC ARTBOOK project, yet to begin officially, due to Covid. The Manitoba Arts Council (MAC | CAM) has funded its creation with a grant. My collaborator photographer partner Phil Hossack and I will begin soon with road trips and research on interesting Manitoba people and places. Being a Manitoba project, it will inevitably be drawn to places where there is a giant sky, lots of sunshine and the iconic great LIGHT our province is known for by photographers and artists around the world. Plus, maybe the prose can add another angle to the photography: The lightness of being? Being light-hearted? Finding the light? Can you help me out, buddy? — I’m a little light…
Anyway, back to the contest: I want to thank The Writers’ Union of Canada — a classy joint — the judges, the pre-selection readers, and my mentors and critique readers on this story. Of the latter, there were several and they did an outstanding job of helping me with this piece — one that I managed to write in the most difficult way possible! I had a lot of help.
Congratulations to the winner and to my co-finalists and to the nearly 800 entrants who, like me on many other occasions, heard the silence and I know they are gearing up to enter again next year. Yikes.
Plus… I do have a lot of contest entries still in play. So cross your fingers and maybe I can fetch up another one.
PROPER MENTION to “Write Clicks” pal and songleader Zilla Jones of Winnipeg who outdid herself with THREE stories in the final eleven.
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HEADINGS: EDUCATION, ASSOCIATIONS/MEMBERSHIPS, PUBLISHED WORKS, CONTESTS-PRIZES-AWARDS, FUNDING, READINGS, WORK IN PROGRESS, FRIENDS & FOLLOWERS, PANELS, ARTIST’S STATEMENT
EDUCATION
University of Victoria (1974-75) University of Winnipeg (1975-77, dangerously close to a B.A. in Sociology) Masters Certificate in Marketing Communication Management, York University (2001) “So You Want To Write Indigenous Characters…” Manitoba Writers’ Guild (2019)
ASSOCIATIONS/MEMBERSHIPS
Member — Manitoba Writers’ Guild Professional Artist — as designated by Manitoba Arts Council New/Early Career Artist — as designated by Canada Council for the Arts Past Member — Winnipeg Public Library’s Prose Writing Circle, led by Winnipeg Public Library Writer in Residence Carolyn Gray (2019-2020) Past Member — The Sunday Writers Group, led by Donna Besel (Lac du Bonnet, MB) Member — WriteRamble, led by Lauren Carter, Winnipeg Public Library Writer in Residence, 2020-2021 Member — Write Clicks, a Winnipeg River/Winnipeg city alliance: a critique circle formed in 2021 Member — Winnipeg River Arts Council Member — The Writers’ Union of Canada
PUBLISHED WORKS
Summary:
111 short stories and flash fiction published in periodicals, anthologies, and contests. Approximately 700 submissions overall.
40 pieces accepted in Canada, 34 US, 25 UK, and 12 in other countries (India, Australia, etc.)
Two stories translated into Spanish.
A collection of short stories, “Pinching Zwieback” will be launched in the fall of 2023. (At Bay Press, Winnipeg). The collection was accepted by the first publisher to which it was submitted.
A debut novel, and several other WIP literary projects, including a second collection of short stories, are also underway.
Details:
2016:16 short stories | 15 online, 2 paid print, 9 Canada, 6 UK, 1 US
2017:20 short stories | all online, 4 Ca, 1 India, 7 UK, 8 US.
Note: 2017 short stories Include: Best of Fiction on the Web: 1996-2017ISBN: 9780992693916 (ISBN10: 9780992693, ISBN13:9780992693) and The Machinery: Fauna ISBN: 9781544723266.
2018:14 short stories, 1 interview, 1 podcast (audio) | 1 paid print, 3 unpaid print, 6 Ca, 4 UK, 1 Ireland, 5 US
“I am Otter” — short story, CommuterLit (Ca)
“Fall From Grace”, short story, Literally Stories (UK) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Of a Forest Silent” — short story, Alsina Publishing LingoBites (UK – English and Spanish)
“City Lights” — short story, Literally Stories (UK)
“The Bottom of the Sky” — short story, Fiction on the Web (UK)
“In the Dim Light Beyond the Fence” — short story, riverbabble (US) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Nothing to Lose” — short story, riverbabble (US) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Shade Tree Haven” — short story, Doorknobs & Bodypaint (US)
“Sweet Caporal at Dawn” — short story, Blank Spaces (Ca), paid print
“Sweet Caporal at Dawn” — short story, Just Words, Volume 2Anthology (Ca), print ISBN: 9781775279273 (ISBN10:1775279278)
“Away Game” — short story, Pulp Literature (Ca), paid print
“Groota Pieter” — short story, River Poets Journal, Special Themed Edition, “The Immigrants” Anthology (US), print (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Five Questions for Mitchell Toews” — interview, Mennotoba (Ca)
“The Narrowing” — short story, Scarlet Leaf Review (Ca) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Wide Winter River” — podcast, Not Ready for Prime Time (US)
2019:14 short stories, 1 interview, 1 CNF essay | 1 paid online, 1 paid print, 2 unpaid print, 3 Ca, 2 UK, 1 Australia, 3 Iran, 8 US
“The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine” — short story, Literally Stories (UK)
“The Toboggan Run” — short story, The MOON magazine (US) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Peacemongers” — short story, The MOON magazine: “Out of This World” Anthology The Best Short Stories from the MOON (US), Volume 1, printISBN: 9781078315326 (ISBN10: 1078315329, ISBN13: 978-1078315326) (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Cave on a Cul-de-sac” — short story, The Hayward Fault Line, Doorknobs & Bodypaint (US) Issue 93
“Din and the Wash Bear” — short story, The Hayward Fault Line, Doorknobs & Bodypaint (US) Issue 95
“Died Rich” — short story, Fabula Argentea (US), Issue #27, paid (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“I am Otter” — short story, Short Tales – Flash Fiction Stories (Iran)
“Away Game” — short story, Short Tales – Flash Fiction Stories (Iran)
“4Q Interview with Author Mitchell Toews” — interview and excerpt from WIP novel, “Mulholland and Hardbar”, South Branch Scribbler (Ca)
“Concealment” — short story, Me First Magazine (US)
“Hundred Miles an Hour” — short story, Rivanna Review, (US), paid print, March 2022
“Piece of My Heart” — short story, Miramichi Flash, (Ca), Spring/Summer 2022
“Downtown Diner” — short story, Cowboy Jamboree, (US), Bruce D’J Pancake Issue
“Winter Eve at Walker Creek Park” and “Shade Tree Haven” — Guernica Editions’ “This Will Only Take a Minute: 100 Canadian Flashes,” (Intl), a collective anthology edited by Bruce Meyer and Michael Mirolla, August 2022 ISBN: 9781771837514 (softcover) Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220195986
“I am Otter” — short story, Lintusen Press “Small Shifts: Short Stories of Fantastical Transformation” edited by Shawn L. Bird, (Ca), anthology, royalties print, July 2022 https://books2read.com/Prose-by-ToewsISBN: 9781989642351 (ISBN10: 1989642357 ISBN13 9781989642351)
“Sanctuary Quandary” — short story, WordCity Monthly (Ca-Intl), July 2022
“New War — Old Technology” — flash fiction, The Fieldstone Review (Ca), Fall 2022.
“No Strings” — short story, Bell Press “Framework of the Human Body” edited by Catherine Mwitta, (Ca), anthology, paid advance/royalties print, 2022. ISBN: TBA
“The Spring Kid” — short story, Macrina Magazine, (US, Intl), Summer 2022
“A Cultivated Halloween” — short story, CommuterLit (Ca), October 2022
“Sweet Caporal” — poem, WordCity Literary Journal (Intl) November 2022
“The Sewing Machine” — short story, Rivanna Review (US), paid print, December 2022
2023: 6 flash/short stories | 1 royalty agreement, 1 UK, 2 Aus, 1 Canada. 2 US
“The Margin of the River” and “I Am Otter” — short stories (2), D.A. Cairns “I Used to be an Animal Lover: An extraordinary and eclectic collection of short stories.” (Au), anthology, royalties print, 2023. ISBN AU: TBA
“Piece of My Heart” — short story, Literally Stories (UK), January 26, 2023
“All Our Swains Commend Her” — short story, PULP Literature (Ca). Spring, 2023
“Pass It to Freddie” — short story, The Other Journal (US), Spring, 2023
“Angel Delorme and the Craigflower Bus” — short story, Hawkshaw Press, “Hardboiled and Loaded with Sin Volume 1” edited by Dianne Pearce (US), anthology, print. Fall 2023. ISBN: TBA
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TOTAL: 111 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts in total out of approximately 650 submissions.
CONTESTS-PRIZES-AWARDS
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The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses is an annual award that has chosen stories for a prestigious anthology for the past 45 consecutive years. Mitchell has three PUSHCART PRIZE nominations (See below for details.)
“So Are They All”— short story, Second Place in the Adult Fiction category of the Write on the Lake (Ca) contest, 2016, paid print ISSN: 1710-1239
“Fall from Grace”— short story, Honourable Mention in The Writers’ Workshop of Asheville (US) Memoirs Contest, 2016
“The Phage Match” —short story,Finalist in Broken Pencil’s (Ca) annual “Deathmatch contest, 2016, print
“Cave on a Cul-de-sac” — short story, Winner in The Hayward Fault Line—Doorknobs & Bodypaint Issue 93 Triannual Themed Flash contest, 2018
“I am Otter” — short story, CommuterLit (Ca), Runner-up in for Flash Fiction Feature, 2018
“Sweet Caporal at Dawn” — short story, nominated by Blank Spaces for a PUSHCART PRIZE, 2019, print
“Piece of My Heart” — a 750-word or less flash fiction was named “Editors’ Choice” in the 2020 Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest from Pulp Literature Press, paid print
“The Margin of the River” — short story, nominated by Blank Spaces for a PUSHCART PRIZE, 2020, print
“Fetch” — short story, one of 11 finalists in a national field of over 800 entries: The Writers’ Union of Canada’s Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Sweet Caporal” has been nominated by Rivanna Review, Charlottesville, Va. for a PUSHCART PRIZE, 2021, print
“The Rabid,” finalist in the 2022 PULP Literature Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest. (750-word max.)
The 2022 J. F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction. This Open competition drew over 400 submissions from around the world from writers in all stages of career development. “The Spring Kid,” was one of 28 longlist finalists and later advanced to the shortlist.
“The Mighty Hartski”: 2022 longlist for the Humber Literary Review/Creative Nonfiction Collective Society (CNFC) Canada-wide CNF contest (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)
“Winter in the Sandilands” was named to the longlist for the 2022 PULP Literature Hummingbird Flash Fiction Contest. Mitch’s story, “Luck!” was on the shortlist in this same contest.
“All Our Swains Commend Her” 2nd Runner-Up in the 2022 PULP Literature Raven Short Story Contest.
“What I thought the most while reading this one for the first time was: ‘This must have taken so long to write!’ Every sentence is packed with detail and not a word is spared. A highly skilled piece of writing with a lot to say about the way we live and how we treat one another. Can’t believe such a short piece of writing left me with such memorable characters and so much to think about!” -Judge Leo X Robertson
FUNDING
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Manitoba Arts Council, June 30, 2020. Financial support for the creation of a unique Manitoba artbook, ekphrastic in nature and featuring artistic photography and short fictional stories. The theme is “People, Places, and Light”. Photography by collaborator, Phil Hossack. Project extended due to Covid 19 to July 1, 2022. Complete.
February 2022. Mitchell has been partnered with veteran, award-winning author Armin Wiebe, a mentor in The Writers’ Union of Canada Mentorship Microgrant program. Armin and Mitch will be reviewing Mitchell’s debut novel: “Mulholland and Hardbar” (“Fargo with Mennonite accents.”)
PULP Literature Reading Series, live internet April 24, 2020
PULP Literature Issue 27 launch, live internet July 19, 2020
Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco, Cal, COVID-19 open mic, Zoom August 19, 2020
Just Voices Volume 4 virtual launch, recorded for September 26, 2020
PULP Literature Issue28 launch, live internet November 7, 2020
Rivanna Review editor Robert Boucheron reads an excerpt from the short story “Hundred Miles an Hour” on Charlottesville (VA) Cable Access TV, May 2022 https://bit.ly/100MPHat12min18
“Sweet Caporal” and “Winter Eve at Walker Creek Park” for an international Zoom audience organized by poet Fizza A. Rabbani (Fizza Abbas) https://www.facebook.com/fizzah.abas.9, May 2022
Prosetry, Jessica Lake, MB, 2022
Excerpts from “No Strings” at the Zoom launch for the “Framework of the Human Body” anthology from Bell Press Books. February 11, 2023
Excerpts from “All Our Swains Commend Her” at the live launch of PULP Literature’s Winter 2023 at the Fabrique St. George Winery in Vancouver, February 20, 2023. (My story is forthcoming in PL Issue 38, Spring 2023.)
Regular appearances on Manitoba Writers’ Guild monthly Zoom critique circle
A short story collection, “Pinching Zwieback” is underway (At Bay Press) and a FALL 2023 release is expected.
Pinching Zwieback: Made-up Stories from the Darp focuses on recurrent, related characters with a common reality: small-town Mennonite life. It’s socially engaged autofiction based heavily on the author’s own background and experiences. The loosely linked stories read, “almost like a novel,” with characters whose lives are given form by the past but undergo change as the world reshapes beliefs and circumstances.
Author Mitchell Toews’, who grew up in his parents’ Mennonite bakery in Steinbach Manitoba employs a sinewy style with ample psychological depth. Toews’ stories reveal the truth behind the fiction. This collection is a blend of memory, fable, and trauma that examines profound moments in which the conflict might be subtle or camouflaged but the consequences are real. A Keatsian, “mansion of many apartments,” the stories combine to offer a broad narrative on how the people once known as the quiet in the land have evolved, and are evolving.
(NOTE: In the story listings above, those pieces selected for inclusion in “Pinching Zwieback” are, in their first appearance on the list, shown in blue.)
“Mulholland and Hardbar” — a WIP novel (“Fargo, with a Mennonite accent”).
“Myths and Troubadours” — a WIP collection of short stories. A wider range of topics, places, people, and circumstances than “Pinching Zwieback.”
“People, Places, Light” — an ekphrastic Manitoba artbook including original photography and short stories (Funded in part by The Manitoba Arts Council | Le conseil des arts du Manitoba.)
A number of new short stories are always on the go, being submitted to literary journals, contests, and anthologies.
“The Mismaloya”— a proposed novelette screenplay adaptation. Seeking a collaborator.
FRIENDS & FOLLOWERS
Twitter 5,574
Facebook 5,000+
Goodreads 274 friends, 22 followers
LinkedIn 923
WordPress 218
PANELS
1.15.21 Mitchell Toews participated as an Artist Testifier for the Commission on Basic Income. This Ontario/Canadian (Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts) jointly-sponsored commission requested Mitch to “share your experience and thoughts with our commissioners and to inform their future report on the issue of Basic Income for Artists.”
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
As a storyteller, I’m often driven to tell my own “Mennonite story.” Partly fact, partly fable. Within that fictional framework, my writing comes from three places: Family, history, and love of storytelling. My most popular and critically acclaimed stories come out of this tradition.
Family is the inspiration for most of my writing. These stories are meant as a lasting message to my family.
History is elusive, cloudy, and is sometimes the subverted domain of those who seek to control the broadly written record. I concern myself with providing a coherent feel for the underlying sentiment of the times and the people. This is the living history I want the reader to experience—one that is visceral and personally felt.
Storytelling is served by the creation of a place and its people both remembered and imagined. I tend towards scenes that hang on action sequences which place the characters in a moral dilemma. The vibrancy of the natural world is always well-represented. Physical harm is often a threat or a consequence. Characters make both good and bad decisions and their relationships contextualize each outcome. If there is trauma, there must also be hope.
A fourth core element might be to “observe my culture” as a Mennonite author. Others have done this extremely well, but I have my own perspective and address issues not yet widely developed by others, or not available in the same time frame/location in which I might write. Important themes include:
(i.) alcoholism
(ii.) violence within the pacifist doctrine of Mennonites
(iii.) patriarchy and misogyny
At all times, I am guided by the tenets of CULTURAL INTEGRITY IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS.
In general, I strive to provide open and accurate artistic observation—even when it is critical—and also to articulate the joy I have seen and felt, and to “stuff my eyes full of wonder” as author Ray Bradbury put it.
Please feel free to share this post! I welcome all comments.
[Image Caption: Re-purposements… a 1960 fishing plug used as the pull-chain fob on the Toews’ living room ceiling fan.]
Trigger Warning: This article contains a lot of sexy plumbing talk.
Almost every day as I ramble around our home in the north woods I am always struck, like a proud curator, by how many treasures I have around here. Things we have bought (meh…) that have served well, but more so stuff Jan and I have thought up, designed and built. Ahh, endorphin rush sting me with thine euphoric prick.
Sorry, that last line didn’t come out quite right, but time is money and there’s no money for editing this month.
To continue about treasures… I get a thrill from the various objects that we have built, mended, replaced, and re-purposed. That last one, re-purposed, is an awkward but useful word that has not yet achieved hyphenless status, even though “hyphenless” has, according to Grammarly and WordPress. I particularly treasure those items that have had their purpose re-defined and radically so, such as the 2001patio door leaves that have become fixed windows in my writing room by the lake; the 1950 fir windows that now grace the She-Shed gazebo-screen porch down by the shore; the old Mistral windsurf board that hangs as a thematic outdoor light fixture above the garage door (can you picture that?) and other detritus of eras past and patents not applied for.
But the Mona Lisa of my collection is the 1950s-era child’s fishing rod that now is a a flexible actuator-whacker for the start-stop switch on our water pump. It’s obvious this needs further scientific/theological description, like the definition of the Holy Ghost, so here goes: The switch has lost its fine-tuning. If you set it so that it starts the pump when needed (like during the rinse-cycle of a shower) it won’t shut-off when the demand is satisfied. Arggh. Conversely, if I literally crawl into the crawlspace beneath the cottage where the pump and its harem of 10-trillion spiders live, and re-adjust the switch so it will shut-off, it then becomes obstinate about STARTING. Yoma leid etj sei! That is, it will shut-off just fine but will not for love nor Lubriplate, start-up! Doh! and double-doh! There is no middle-ground, only a crawly, dusty, oneiric no-man’s-land where spiders wear octa-legged harem pants and thick mascara and the potentate pump grins sardonically, as pumps and potentates are wont to do, damn their O-ring eyes!
Anyway… I note in my curse-filled administrations that a light tap with my screwdriver allows the pump to overcome its refusal to start. (Freudian?) Aha! A clue to the solution? So, what if… I set the actuator switch to always automatically shut-off without fail — thus eliminating the danger of a pump run-on that would burn out the dry-running guts — and then I came up with a way to manually give it a light tap to get it to start-up. Hmm. The trouble is, the only way to tap it is to crawl under the cottage. This crawling is a big ask for me, a guy with joints made of goat-cheese and ossified bone as pitted and porous as Manitoba limestone. How then, to tap without crawling down into that dim spidery hellspace?
I eye the kitchen floor above the pump, Makita drill in hand. “Ey-yi-yi,” Janice says with a you-gotta-be-kidding pump-grin, “Can’t you come up with another approach? We can’t have a hole in the middle of the floor! For the love of Cloaca Maxima!” she says, with a callous reference to the God of Plumbing. (We have a shrine to her in our garage.)
“But the crawling, the T-A-P-P-I-N-G… ” I whine like our truck in reverse.
“Figure something else out.” Her final edict. Inalterable. She hath spake.
Alive and filled with mother-of-invention impetus, I rake through the junk on the junk-shelf, next to the shrine.
“What are you looking for?” Cloaca Maxima asks. (Gods are so nosy!)
“I’ll know when I find it,” I reply in perfectly plausible circular logic. In that instant, I strike gold. A 1950s-era three-foot long fiberglass fishing rod. My re-purposer synapses fire like George Gatling’s murderous gunpowder hydra and I SEE it in my mind: a cord running from the edge of the deck and underneath all the way to the crawlspace wall, through a tube, into the crawlspace, with its terminus at the tip of the midget fishing rod. I TWANG and release the cord and the flexy rod will snap against the actuator switch, effectively mimicking my crawling tap-tap-tap. Like humankind’s ancient forbearers, I have risen up from the crawling stage and have freed my hands to grasp tools. Vive la évolution!
There it is: a way to administer an actuating sting with my re-purposed flexible prick. (Again,not really liking the way that image plays out, but, gotta finish this post and get out there in the sunshine, so I’ll just leave it as is.) The point is (eww!) this is the kind of MacGyvering that passes for progress around here, and I, inventor son of an inventor son of an inventor, find it provides a highly endorphilic, artistic pleasure for me here in the Fifth Re-purpose Arrondissements Municipauxde Jessica Lake. Gertrude Stein would be impressed, “A prick is a prick is a prick!” she might observe.
Anyway-anyway-anyway… The real purpose of this long build-up is to say that, like my invented treasures here-about, I take an equal amount of JOY from my literary works of art. They don’t bloody my knuckles — well, not in a literal way — but they take just as much effort and like my craftwork at Jessica, they come from old objects, re-purposed. Life experiences of mine and others taken and writ large in stories and essays.
Here is one such. It’s one of my favs and I like to show it off, like one might a ’57 Chevy with “Old Fart” license plates, only my stories are re-purposed to give a different kind of a ride on a different kind of a road. The story “Fast and Steep” first appeared in the Canadian lit journal, Agnes and True.
And, for a little variety, here’s another — a short essay that graced rob mclennan’s blog some time ago, it is a wise-crack that let some light in, in a Leonard kind of way: http://bit.ly/mySMALLPRESSwritingdayToews
allfornow,
Mitch
Please feel free to share this post! I welcome all comments.
“What all I don’t know,” is a kind of Steinbach* way of describing all that I’ve not yet experienced or learned.
My what all deficit is big. This is true even though I’ve experienced a lot. (I’m kind of old and a high-miler in some ways.) Anyway, what all I don’t know is a lot. How big “a lot” is, I don’t know because, well, I don’t know what all I don’t know.
Who does know what all I don’t know? And what would I do if I did know what all I don’t know about querying and novels and short story collections and literary agents and small presses and synopses and loglines and other Cinderella story bullet points? Predictably, I don’t know.
I DO know that there are those who know what all I don’t know.
Who are these what all knowers? I believe they are a facet of Cinderellaness called MENTORS. These fabled folk, awash in knowledge and given to sharing and patience and paying back and paying forward and other characteristics that may earn them wings, or a permanent place at the ball, or other indications of grace… as the glass slipper fits.
I know they exist because they have snuck into the collection of what all I do know. I have experienced them by chance and good fortune and benefited from their abundance. They include: abiding friends who waded through early drafts. The writer friends and comrades who did likewise; who were tough but kind, honest and objective. The paid freelance editors who gave me my money’s worth and much more. Much more. The Writers in Residence who also did what they were selected to do — help writers with their craft — and took an interest; gave more than required by their mandate. The Guild and lit journal volunteer readers, editors, and website builders and etcetera specialists who work in the wille hundat** of the literary world. The family members who bit their tongues when biting was not their first inclination and cheered even when cheering seemed a little “Toews sinks a lay-up with his team down 27 and 55 seconds left on the clock,” ish.
There is link between the two what alls: what all I don’t know and what all I do know. There must be! The link, the synapse, the causeway, the gossamer thread is this aforementioned group of virtuous MENTORS.
Where are the MENTORS that form this link? What are they doing right now? Do they herd or are they lone wolves? What or who do they prefer to mentor? What is the extent of their range and how are they best found in the wild? Are there Mentor-whisperers?
How do I become a MENTEE?
~~~
*Steinbach: my old hometown in rural Manitoba.
** wille hundat: a Plautdietsch or Low German expression meaning, “of unknown origin or towards an unknown destination” as defined in the “Mennonite Low German Dictionary.” (Jack Thiessen, Max Kade Institute, 2003) I think of this as the hundred acres, or so, on a farm that is not yet cleared and constitutes a wild bushland of unknown native flora and fauna; an unexplored landscape of mystery and supposed, unspecific threat.
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Last May (2020) I wrote this, a bit of snide comedy in response to The Mango Schiet Stain’s openly racist comments at the time. Now, a year later, we see the horrible, tragic aftermath as his repugnant legacy of racist violence lives on. And grows. I hope we speak out against would-be Canadian copycats who mimic these core hatreds, endorsed by American conservative leadership, and by extension, their evangelical yesmen.
“Queen Sensula, do you mean to tell me that the Romulans created and then spread the deadly Space Virus? (Appalled. Much Elizabethan flavour.)”
As my debut novel nears completion I am working on understanding the basics of the business side of writing. The book will become one of millions of items competing for audience share. Who will my book appeal to? Why? How can I reach them to let them know what I have written? How will I stand out from the massive crowd of competing works that vie for those same consumers of literature?
What’s in my toolshed?
Thinking in this arena is not new to me. Marketing and advertising are how I made a living as I raised kids and paid bills and lived life (a wonderful one) while waiting for my opportunity to focus on creative writing. I even have some applicable education: I studied Sociology at the undergrad level and have a Masters Certificate in Marketing. Also, I made a paycheque for more than twenty years as “the creative guy” for manufacturing firms in Canada and the U.S.
Still, even with my background, literature and the world of literary book marketing and sales is all new to me. I may have sold lots of windows and doors, but apart from expertise in the basics of marketing, I have no insider knowledge when it comes to publishing and book sales.
So, I’m learning as I go. Experts abound and it’s not finding advice that is a challenge, but more a matter of figuring out which advice to follow. Several experienced authors, including my regular freelance editor, have made suggestions. Their ideas range from self-publish to approaching small presses who consider “agent-less” authors to seeking out a literary agent. These mentors have given me a lot to think about.
My own best advice circles around finding like-minded, fun, smart professionals with whom I get along. (I didn’t flog fenestration for all those years just to align myself with a bunch of miserable people, after all!)
Over the past six years of dedication to writing fiction and CNF, I’ve wrestled with the self-publish vs. traditional publishing quandary. There are plenty of factors to consider and it’s not an easy decision. It is the main decision though: everything follows, depending on what you choose. I feel strongly inclined towards a traditional approach. I think this is because my greatest involvement in literature as a reader was during the time when “vanity presses” were a weak alternative to regular channels. Times have changed, but I have to admit that my perspective is still somewhat biased. But biased or not, I would certainly go down the current self-publish path if not for the heavy commitment to marketing.
It’s kind of ironic — I’m an experienced and successful marketer and yet marketing is the activity that dissuades me from choosing self-publishing. Here’s the thing: I have spent more than twenty years obsessing over marketing and persuasion and advertising. I did it for a living and it was, in many ways, a grind. So to jump right back into that grind is not appealing to me. Furthermore, I know the methods and channels and players in my old industry, but I am not equipped in the same way for literature. In traditional publishing, I know I will still be saddled with a heavy obligation to market myself and my work, but at least I’ll have a knowledgeable and invested partner to direct me. As a self-publisher, I have to figure everything out by myself.
From Writer’s Digest
I’m told the first thing an agent or a publishing house wants to know about a novel is “Who will read it?” And why, I’m sure. In my case, even though I come from the Segment-Target-Position world, I did not think about the larger audience when I wrote the book. As I’ve run through edits and revisions (over the last two years+) I’ve come to have a sense for WHO that WHO is, categorically and in the person of a proto-reader.
I’m inclined to believe that my proto-reader might resemble me in some ways. I wrote it for myself after all — consciously or subconsciously — and others who have experienced similar life circumstances might most naturally be attracted to the story. Plus, I believe that the things about relationships, loyalty, and violence that brought me to write the story in the first place will find an appreciative audience in others. I suspect so. I hope so.
So… for starters, who am I? 65 Y.O. white, cisgender, hetero, male, backsliding (or never really slid forward in the first place) Canadian Mennonite. Hmm… oughta be about 70 or 80 of those. I’ll need more, so what next?
Cast a broader net; find and engage others. Objective: read my book, like it, experience catharsis, empathy, and emotional rise and fall, a few chuckles, some “exactly!” moments and some “no way!” experiences too. A book you tell friends about at Tim Hortons, in church, at book club, at old-timer baseball, sewing circle, on a wine-tasting tour, on your walk, at the grands’ hockey game, etc.
They will likely be readers who enjoy and gravitate towards: big characters, intense stories, dramedy. How do they feel about Miriam Toews work? Patrick Friesen? (Whoa! — I ain’t sayin THAT… I’m JUST sayin… you know, kinda-sorta-maybe a bit… some generalized similarities owing to some broad commonalities in that general direction and certainly from the same original whole cloth, but a different batch. Make sense? Have I been “humble of heart” enough?)
They will be individuals who like nature, the boreal forest. They might like fishing, snowmobiling, bird-watching, hiking, hunting. They might have memories of small towns, farm life, the whole Menno schtick, urban or rural, Canadian or U.S. Frintschoft? They might have them in Steinbach, Fraser Valley, Winkler, Kitchener-Waterloo, Leamington, Midwest US. Or they might find Mennonites kind of interesting even if they are not of that faith or cultural origin themselves, but buy the sausage and love the quilts.
They might have read and enjoyed: Of Mice and Men, Never Cry Wolf, The Sisters Brothers, Don Quixote, Tortilla Flat, Papillion, On the Road, Calvin and Hobbes 😉 and A Complicated Kindness and The Shunning. (Just to ring that bell again.)
They could be lovers of: Fargo, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Thelma and Louise, The Nick Adams Stories… Their favourite kind of sci-fi movie might be from the “last person left on earth” genre.
Okay, all right…coming into focus, through the glass darkly.
“Well, how can I tell if I’m going to like the book unless you tell me what it’s ABOUT?”
The Target Reader: Interviewed while enjoying a mid-priced Canadian wine, on the deck of their summer home in the boreal forest, grand-children at their feet.
“Good point. Okay…It’s called Mulholland and Hardbar. Think, ‘Fargo’ but with Mennonite accents. Here’s a brief synopsis:
Burdened by a tragic event in his recent past, college freshman Aubry Penrose, who goes by the self-chosen name “Mulholland” decides to ditch school after the first semester. He consolidates his limited savings and rolls out of Winnipeg in his pick-up truck heading north, not to his home town of Friedensdorf but further into the wilds of the Manitoba boreal. He plans to live alone in the isolated cabin his Welsh Grandfa Billy built in the Fifties on the shore of Penrose Pond.
Alone he is until—resolve weakening—he finds himself roaming the region’s cabin country looking for easy-pickings. Out of character, he begins stocking his larder and taking things he needs with a less-than-certain promise to return them. He keeps a well-intentioned list of his plunder until he’s joined unexpectedly by “Hardbar”, a unique, larger-than-life stranger with whom Mulholland strikes up an uneasy alliance. They combine forces, share the darkness in their pasts and wander down an ever steepening path of mayhem, led mostly by the fierce, single-minded little man who arrived mid-winter on a stolen snowmobile.
The story follows the four seasons in Manitoba’s forestland: friendship, mistrust, deceit, and violence.”
Oh, and “Mulholland and Hardbar” takes place in the 1970s on Treaty 1 and 3 lands, unceded Indigenous lands that are the traditional home of the Anishinabe and Swampy Cree nations and the home of the Métis Nation.
SO, BOIL IT DOWN, ALREADY… what is the condensed version? I’m working on that. The grid below is part of the distillation process. A succinct way to get to the key traits, tendencies, influences and cultural biorhythms that make the human world go round and round.
That’s all for now. But I’ll be thinking about it, so that when the question is asked, “Who will want to read it?” I won’t say, “It’s a book for everyone!” because I actually don’t believe that it is.
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I was approached by an organization tasked to investigate Basic Income in Canada, with special attention to those of us in the Arts. They created a commission and invited artists from around the country to offer opinion and comment on the concept of Basic Income and how, specifically, it might affect the lives of artists.
I was invited to provide an Artist’s Testimonial and here is what I wrote:
I believe that Canada, wealthy and progressive as we are, could become a country that invests in its marginalized people by providing a guaranteed annual income for all citizens. I envision a graduated scale designed to offer a helping hand to get started or a financial safety net to mitigate financial trouble in an individual’s life and also to be there for those with obstacles to their ability as wage earners.
Why do this? Because life is unscripted and almost everyone, even those in our large “middle class” population needs help from time to time. Furthermore, and maybe of most importance, there is widespread suffering in Canada caused by poverty. By acting proactively, we have an opportunity to reduce suffering and at the same time empower a class of Canadians who may not otherwise achieve their dreams or even, in truth, live the life that most of us take for granted.
“The Poor” do not want to be “The Poor!”
A guaranteed basic income would reduce hardship, support upward mobility and drive greater aspiration across all levels of financial reality.
Plus, guaranteed basic income is in large part simply moving the dollar investment from the end of the cycle — being reactive and giving cash or services to people in desperate circumstances — to the beginning. We should spend to prevent rather than to rescue. Prevention offers a solution earlier in life, when people are in the formative process, especially concerning education and career.
Now, as to artists, specifically: Choosing the path to your dream of a career in the Arts is daunting because of the long, difficult period of education, training, and incubation. This means, with few exceptions, that those who wish to be professional artists — whatever the discipline — must expect and endure a long initial period as low-income earners.
In my personal experience, even with my parents’ financial support available as I finished college, I chose not to pursue a career in the Arts. I decided to take the safer route, financially, and “save” my art for a later date. That later date took a lifetime to arrive and while I have no complaints, I did not devote myself to my love — fiction — until age sixty. Now I am an emerging artist at age sixty-five and while I am extremely pleased with these last five years, I can’t help but wonder… “What if?”
In my case, perhaps the security of a guaranteed basic income would have given me the courage to chase my artistic dreams and not postpone or dismiss them? It’s impossible to say, but I can say for certain that our society is made more vital by the availability of choice. It’s empowering to know that your basic needs will be met even if the career path you are on will take a while to reach fully-supportive status. Furthermore, Arts Councils, armed with the underpinning of guaranteed basic income could focus all of their efforts on the many professional aspects and not worry about the artists’ core financial needs. The guaranteed basic income would take the pressure off the artists and the Arts Councils, for the betterment of both. This is true for all stakeholders in the artistic “value chain” and would breed an environment of possibility and less of a dismal “starving artist” scenario that defeats many artists before they begin.
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Mitchell Toews 