Podium

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

I don’t enter too many contests. They almost all charge a fee, which is understandable.  I am a cheap Menno—also understandable to those who have taken the pledge of frugality that is part of every Oma’s hand-me-down tool kit for survival in the wide welt.

A contest I have entered a few times is from Pulp Literature Press. It’s called the Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest. In 2019, I made the longlist. This year, my story was named the Editors’ Choice. A ground-rule double, which I will take with as much bat-flippin’ humility as my over-caffeinated morning-person self can muster. I’m damned pleased.

Furthermore, I felt as though this story was, in part, a product of my excellent Writing Circle in Wpg, led by Wpg Public Library Writer-in-Res, Carolyn Gray. It’s a talented group and I’ve learned a lot from our meetings.

PL is an exceptional lit mag… small press… group of editors and artists… and a judge with plenty of creds. It’s an exemplary part of the white-hot West Coast writing community; home to a blintering sky full of starry writers and poets. As a former BC resident (nine years in the WACK) I am proud of what Pulp Lit has done and is doing.

Here’s the link: BZZZZZ!

The Sacrifice Fly

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

If you play enough baseball, you get to a point where you can produce certain outcomes with regularity. This is most true in fielding where extraordinary plays become almost routine. Predictable outcomes are less common in pitching and batting.

At the plate, it’s often the role of the batter to hit a flyball far enough into the outfield to score the runner from third base. The pitcher knows it and throws high riseballs and drops to keep the hitter on the ground or pop her up. But a decent player can often deliver that lazy SAC fly.

I think this is true across a broad spectrum. An average sales professional can renew a long-time account… a basketball player can hit the open J… a practiced politician can deflect uncomfortable questions and provide a safe non-answer without mussing her hair.

However, artists who reach the safety zone are drawn to go beyond. Dylan went electric… Vincent rendered his 200th (500th?) sunflower and looked to the heavens for a new challenge… “Finnegan’s Wake” came out and slapped a lot of people in the face. Art, to reach its potential, needs—at some point—to venture out into uncharted territory and put the artist at risk. “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” as a small Canadian actor with good hair, dimples and a cute little paunch used to say in the opening voice-over, weekdays at 5:00 p.m. in our house on Sunrise Bay.

One of my artistic heroes, Winslow Homer, wrote that one must “experiment boldly.” I agree and even though I still need to hone basic skills (a lot) I feel it’s also time for me to leave my own friendly confines and be bold.

Trouble is, unlike the master, I am not endowed with a limitless amount of talent and a universally loved body of work. But no matter, the feeling of being alone, friendless and at risk is, like landing head-oeuvre-heels in the deep-end… “good for ya!”

Lately, I’ve been on this bold mission. I’ve let myself be led by my Writing Circle and by the greats who went before. Becky Hagenston, Flannery O’Connor, and even Jean Luc Picard—my doppelganger with a Shakespearean accent. (My accent is more East Reserve, with a side order of Simon Biester coarse Mennonite brogue.)

Image result for brogue shoe

Over the last few days, I’ve gone down swinging a few times as I sought the fences. Reviewers and critiquers have sent me packing, without so much as a foul tip. They did give me tips, though—“Bet heavy—sleep on the streets” or messages of that ilk.

Yesterday, a small breakthrough. An acceptance for one of my Nina, Pinta, and hail Santa Marias. From a wonderful band of editors who know the stench of a book bonfire and are not afraid to toss ugly trash into it, but also take a dim view of too easily barbequing writers whose work takes the path less travelled. (They’re not wild about the above confusing potpourri of images, but, hey—this is just a blog, so edges may be rough.)

Speaking of rough edges, “I am a series of small victories,” comes to mind. This quote from Charles Bukowski, an experimenter if ever one there was. NO, I don’t defend his misogyny or off-handed violence, alcoholism, or other missteps and ignoble romps. I like a lot of what he wrote and respect his boundary-crossing as a part of his artistic journey.

Writers must stray. We must, “dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight,” from time to time. Must we not? Not to become a part of that world, but to know how to avoid falling into it.

Anyway, I’m excited to be doing what I’m doing and hope I can come out on the other side, better for the whippings I will take along the way.

allfornow,
Mitch

News on this story in May, when it is due to hit the internet.

Jessica Lake Idyll

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Last summer a good friend visited. We drank cold Belgian lager beside a warm Manitoba lake. It was idyllic and pleasant. To add to the enjoyment, Irene told us a story from her past—her mom is my aunt’s sister and that family is famously as full of life and spontaneity as a sizzling firecracker.

I confessed to our friend Irene that the story was terrific and that, guiltily, I was tempted to steal it. She said I could steal with her permission—so, a theft, but legally pre-excused.

Over the next few months, I wrote it first as a short essay, then changed it to be used as the first segment of a more complicated three-part story.

It was, I believed, a truly Canadian story and more so a Canadian Mennonite tale, even though my friend’s mom is not, by origin, a Mennonite. (But she sure as heck lived with Mennonites, as did her sister—my aunt.) I sent it out for consideration by several literary journals, hoping for the best.

Ultimately, I decided to withdraw the story. I had grown dissatisfied with it and a few readers—other writers whose opinion I trusted—felt it was convoluted and disjointed, even if they didn’t say it exactly that way…

Schiet.

But, one of the markets spoke up. Like several of my writer friends, they said the first segment of the story was worth keeping and would I care to rewrite it as a solo piece? “Sure,” says I, happy for the lifeline.

So I rewrote and resubmitted. I felt positive, partly because of the resurrection and also sensing that the reduction from that longer piece was now more purely refined; “Un sirop nappant,” as, René, a spontaneous Jessica Lake neighbour and skilled cook, might have said.

Happily, the editors agreed and come July, “The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon” will appear in Agnes and True, an exceptional Canadian publication.

Agnes and True is a Canadian online literary journal.

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Our journal was founded on the belief that there are many writers whose work has not yet had the chance to be appreciated and many stories that have not yet found their literary home.

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As our name suggests, Agnes and True celebrates the achievement of women, though not exclusively. We are particularly interested in discovering and publishing the work of emerging older writers (both female and male).

My thanks to the editorial team at Agnes and True, home to more than a few sizzling firecrackers, I am sure.

Agnes and True is brought to you by The Trojan Horse Press, Inc. 

 

 

 

 

Coming Up Soon

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

COMING UP:

LUNATE-logo-black-3

10.15.19—The VERY promising new UK literary journal market, Lunate Fiction has accepted Mitchell’s much-sweat-over story, “Holthacka’s Quandary.” It will appear in December, but don’t wait! Visit their site and see what’s on offer. It’s free so there’s no wrist.

Holthacka (Matt Zehen) interacts once again with the venerable Peter Vogel, one of the author’s favourite repeat characters. Here’s hoping these Hartplatzites can find a happy home in Lunate where favourites (like Damhnait Monaghan and Robert Boucheron and more) have taken up residence.

Riddle fence logo

10.13.19—One of Toews’ recent short stories has been graciously accepted by a special Canadian lit mag from a rock near a windrous and wondrous squiggly-edged place. Yes, it’s true, he has a short story called “Fast and Steep” in Newfoundland’s Riddle Fence: A Journal of Arts & Culture. Coming November 2019.

A winter’s tale from the flat, frozen front yard of Matt and Justy.

Peace, Brooda

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Today is the UN’s International Day of Peace. So, even if you are a follower of the incandescent flaccid golf popsicle from south of the 49th—and are therefore ideologically opposed to the UN for some incomprehensible reason (draws deep breath) —you may want to meditate on peace for a few minutes.

Couldn’t hurt, right?

Here’s a squawk from the rearmost pew; a story called “The Peacemongers” which first appeared in The MOON magazine in June 2017. This story was also chosen to be included in the publication’s recent, beautiful anthology, “Out of This World” The Best Short Stories from The MOON Volume I (2013-2019).

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Peace. Conscientious Objectors. “Just War”. Leaders we are bound by the bible to follow, chosen by and given authority by God, we are told… even leaders with triangular moustaches.

My cousin Doug and I used to jump aboard the tractors lined up for sale on the Case dealership lot in Steinbach, Manitoba. We were, in those long-ago summers, U.S. fighter pilots shooting down Messerschmidt 109s in our P-51s. If a few things in our ancestry had gone differently, maybe we would have been in imaginary Luftwaffe cockpits instead of those of the USAF. A few more twists of fate and we might have had ancestors in the Russian infantry meat-grinder or the Polish resistance. Or maybe, had our forefathers stayed in Frisland, our Opas past would have considered a “MANNEN VON NEDERLAND!” recruiting poster and become real Flying Dutchmen.

flying dutchman

Had our great-great-grandpa Toews chosen Mountain Lake, MN instead of Manitoba’s East Reserve, Doug and I may well have found ourselves singing along to Country Joe and the Fish in Da-nang or some other place of less-than-righteous smiting. My fiction, “A Vile Insinuation” revisits this troubled time on the borderline.

Anyway, please find highlighted and hyperlinked above a couple of peace inclined short stories of mine. Give’em a read and afterwards, maybe give some waiter or waitress a twenty-buck tip to address the war on poverty. THAT’s a JUST war!

Also, here’s a link to Slaughterhouse-Five, a true book of peace for this day of peace. So it goes.

Died Rich

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

“DIED RICH”

This is the heartfelt tale of a neophyte basketball player—slash—jung Reiba ☠️and it was selected for the May 2019 Issue #27 edition of the American literary magazine Fabula Argentea. Find it HERE.

Editor Rick Taubold: “We don’t single out any pieces in an issue as being better than the others, but you might find it interesting to read and compare “Died Rich” and “Whence We Came, Whither We Go” because they both explore a similar theme, yet they are very different stories with different outcomes.”

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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “Died Rich”:

The title alone is compelling, even if it totally misleads the reader about the story’s content. After the first couple of paragraphs, the reader is hooked on the character and anxiously wondering where the story is headed. One mark of a great story is that opening hook and promise, and with his opening author Mitchell Toews promises a good story and does not disappoint with his different take on how to handle a bully, even if… (spoiler removed)

One thing we loved about this piece was Dr. Rempel’s story about the borderline cases in Hell. At the time, this seems like… (spoiler removed)

☠️ A jung Reiba is a boy pirate, according to the author’s less-than-perfect Plautdietsch.

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Aug 8 Addendum: See “Concealment” on the excellent online lit journal, Me First Magazine. https://wp.me/pawMQk-2w

“OUT OF THIS WORLD”

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

I’m equal parts thrilled and honoured to be included in Leslee Goodman’s anthology of The MOON Magazine 2013-2019. As a contributor (“Peacemongers” June 2017) I find myself sharing the lunar night with a wide variety of heavenly minds and rising stars.

OUT OF THIS WORLD back MOON
The back cover of OUT OF THIS WORLD

Jessica Lake, Manitoba—Local author Mitchell Toews has a short story featured in the new anthology, Out of This World: The Best Short Stories from The MOON. His story, “Peacemongers,” tells of young boys wrestling with issues of non-violence, conscientious objection, and how to stand up to a bully in Hartplatz, Manitoba, against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis. The story is one of 23 works included in this anthology from The MOON magazine, a monthly journal of personal and universal reflections. (Full Press Release linked below.) “Peacemongers” is one of eight “Making Peace” selections in the book.

Curious and ready for a great summer read? Both Kindle and softcover versions of the anthology are available on Amazon at a great price! Take a brief exit from this world and its circular rancour, breaking news, rising water and record temperatures and find 23 new worlds to explore!

Preview a sampling of OUT OF THIS WORLD here: http://a.co/hL673Qd

Booksellers—US & Canada Retailers, Christian Retailers, International Retailers: https://www.ingramcontent.com/retailers/contact

Public and K-12 Libraries— https://www.ingramcontent.com/libraries

Press Release—Local author Mitch Toews featured in Out of This World anthology

Kits mitch zoom
Contributor Mitchell Toews of Jessica Lake, Manitoba

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Invisible people | Addressing homelessness

The theme for the July 2019 issue of The MOON Magazine is Invisible People. It’s a multi-faceted look at homelessness. “If your brother becomes impoverished and his hand falters beside you, you shall strengthen him, whether he is a stranger or a native, so that he can live with you.” – Leviticus 25:35

 

“Died Rich” Coming to Fabula Argentea

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

My heartfelt tale of a neophyte basketball player—slash—jung Reiba ☠️ will be included in the May 2019 edition of the American literary magazine Fabula Argentea. 

https://duotrope.com/listing/8261/fabula-argentea

Thanks to Editor Rick Taubold for accepting my work. This is a “silver story” of both friendship and hardship that comes from personal experiences and a buddy who left too soon.

Active since 2012, Fabula Argentea receives over 500 submissions per year and from that produces three issues of about 8-12 stories each. Here’s an interview with Editor Taubold that succinctly describes the magazine’s approach:

https://duotrope.com/interview/editor/8261/fabula-argentea

allfornow,
Mitchell

☠️

jung Reiba is Plautdietsch (Low German) for “young pirate”.

 

Place and Time

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

foc flannery place and time quote only

Ah, eternity.

My stories—and everyone else’s—spring from life. Life lived, life observed, life imagined. Life reconstructed.

A vital part of each story—and each life—is place and time. Truths from one era or one location or one moment in a given journey alter and define the future.

Driven by my own curiosity, here is a roll-call of Place, Time, and basic protagonist context from my stories:

i — “Encountered on the Shore” A university student makes an unsettling discovery in downtown Winnipeg, in the fall of 1973.

ii — “A Vile Insinuation” During the summer following, the main character from “Encountered on the Shore” considers fate and blessings at a baseball tournament in Vita, Manitoba, near the US border.

iii — “Without Reason” Now retired, the MC from “Encountered” and “Vile”, is diagnosed with cancer and he considers his plight and that of others like him. Set in his small Mennonite prairie hometown, current day.

i — “Zero to Sixty” A retired man is attacked, near Christmas in Chilliwack, BC, current day.

ii — “The Margin of the River” and the audio except, “Wide Winter River” The MC from “Zero to Sixty” considers what happened the day before and sees first hand the inequity and sorrow that is built into life. All life.

“The Rothmans Job” An odd couple set out on a dubious nighttime caper during a fierce winter blizzard in Winnipeg, during the 1970s.

“South of Oromocto Depths” A teenage boy gets into a foolish skirmish with his father on the Victoria Day long weekend in 1971 New Brunswick.

 “Nothing to Lose” A former hockey player looks back on his life and his regrets in rural Manitoba during the dusty heat of summer, in the Sixties.

“Heavy Artillery” A young baseball fan in 1962 becomes embroiled in adult suspicion and prejudice in a small prairie town — predominantly Mennonite. (The imaginary, recurrent town of “Hartplatz, Manitoba”.)

“A Fisherman’s Story” In 1970, on the Mexican Pacific coast, an elderly woman and her young daughter are dealt an unfair hand. (P.S. — the prequel and the sequel to this story appear in the trilogy “The Bottom of the Sky”. See link below.)

“Winter Eve in Walker Creek Park” A trio of females on a wintery night in St. Catherines, Ontario, near Christmastime, current day.

“Breezy and the Six-Pack Sneaker” A rainy, beery night in Hartplatz in the Sixties is the scene for a tangled yarn of deception.

“The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine” A straight-laced Mennonite husband and wife take on danger in a dark Winnipeg alley in 1934. (Rerun on Literally Stories, Feb 17.)

“Frozen Tag” A man encounters a strange reprise from his past (at the Minneapolis Athletic Club in 1980) in the Chilliwack Leisure Centre, current day.

“The Business of Saving Souls”  A youth pastor in the fictitious city of Tribune, in the northern US Midwest meets challenges in the sanctuary of a gleaming megachurch, current day.

“The Preacher and His Wife” Palace intrigue, Harplatz style, throws a family into an untoward uproar in the 1960s.

“I am Otter” A shunned congregant discusses culture, power, and enfranchisement with a stranger near a lake in Manitoba, current day.

“The Beefeater and the Donnybrook”  A mild-mannered Halifax, NS tourist is mistaken and mistook in drizzly London, current day.

“The Log Boom” Poignant points of view — a father, son, and grandfather in the Lower Mainland of BC, current day.

“The Peacemongers” War, bullies and knuckle justice from the perspective of a boy in Hartplatz, circa 1965.

“Fairchild, McGowan and the Detective” Recalling employment, both the good and the bad in Hartplatz and Winnipeg, 1970-80.

“Graperoo” A piece of Graperoo bubblegum experiences the four seasons in rural Manitoba in the Sixties.

“So Are They All” It’s September 1961 and a young boy receives an education in loyalty and courage in his grandmother’s country raspberry patch.

“The Seven Songs” A middle-aged Canadian man meets a local contemporary at a resort in Mexico, current day.

“Fall From Grace” A boy gets stuck in a fraught adventure and learns about his father through it in the heat of a prairie summer in Hartplatz, 1963.

“Away Game” A 50-something man meets with an older family member at the side of a dreamy, summery lake in Manitoba’s boreal forest, current day.

“In the Dim Light Beyond the Fence” The reader travels back into Canadian small-town hardball with the MC, reliving a fateful doubleheader from the Fifties.

“City Lights” A small-town “up-and-comer” gets in over his head in Toronto, current day.

“Groota Pieter” Spring softball in small-town Mennonite Manitoba is described, from the Sixties to current day.

“Sweet Caporal at Dawn” On a moody Manitoba morning near a spring lake, a youngster and an older confederate fish for pickerel during the mid-Seventies.

“The Bottom of the Sky” A trilogy that follows a “pinche” cabin-boy and the ship’s captain on a fishing charter boat from 1955 Acapulco to the future in a fishing village in the Seventies. (P.S. – If you’re inclined, give this story a read and tell me if you think it could be adapted into a screenplay. I see it in flickering snatches of film in my head and just wonder if that occurs to anyone else. If you’re a screenwriter or in film, I’d love an opinion — tough love included. —mjt)

“Shade Tree Haven” An adult remembers more than he cares to as he thinks back to summers at a favourite swimming pool in the early 1960s.

“The Narrowing” A sensitive boy and his straight-ahead grandfather go through a harrowing experience in the Manitoba wilds, current day. An important secondary character in Abbotsford, BC is part of the story.

“The Phage Match” In a surreal radio broadcast from somewhere in Canada, current day, the evils of drug addiction are the backdrop for some strange characters.

“Died Rich” A high school freshman in a frigid southern Manitoba winter in 1961 struggles to endure.

“Concealment” A fledgling Manitoba business traveller gets more than he expects on a springtime trip to the Atlanta Zoo in the 1980s.

“Mulholland & Hardbar” (Novel WIP) A troubled youth experiences the four seasons in the Canadian Shield: love, friendship, deceit, and violence. 1972.

Drama: From the Greek, “to do” or “to act”

The Bottom of the Sky (Dos)

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Here’s a fast literary, “Guess what!” in case you were just waiting for some random information from the noireal. My short story trilogy, “The Bottom of the Sky”, is Fiction on the Web‘s Pick of the Month.

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The bottom of the sky is where allegiances collide: a charter boat owner, the ship’s captain, and a young deckhand. When an act of needless violence plays out on the waters of Acapulco Bay in 1955, simple lives are pushed off course, perhaps to be lost forever.    
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https://www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2018/10/the-bottom-of-sky-by-mitchell-toews.html
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Note that “Part 2” appeared as a solo piece in Rhubarb Magazine back in 2016 as “The Fisherman’s Story”. I had to find out more, so I wrote the prequel and the sequel.
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FotW is a London based literary site, the first of the species, to be exact – publishing online since 1996!
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P.S. – It’s been suggested that this trilogy might lend itself well to a screenplay conversion. What do you think? “CUT!” or “That’s a wrap!”? 
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sailfish
allfornow friends,
Mitch
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