Detailed C-V

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

MITCHELL TOEWS: A big list…

 ONLINE ADDRESSES
Mitchellaneous.com
@prosebytoews (Instagram & Threads)
@crustywareniki (Bluesky)
Social media author pages @Mitchell_Toews on Twitter | X, Goodreads, and LinkedIn

 CURRICULUM-VITAE

HEADINGS: BIO, EDUCATION, ASSOCIATIONS/MEMBERSHIPS,  PUBLISHED WORKS, CONTESTS-PRIZES-AWARDS, FUNDING, READINGS, WORK IN PROGRESS, FRIENDS & FOLLOWERS, PANELS, ARTIST’S STATEMENT

BIO

Mitchell Toews is a Canadian author whose work has been nominated for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize (Pulp Literature, 2025) and four Pushcart Prizes. His debut collection Pinching Zwieback (At Bay Press, 2023) explores fairness, faith, and voice in rural and immigrant communities. His fiction has appeared in more than fifty journals across North America and Europe. Find him in the wild air or, less strenuously,​ at ​https://mitchtoewsauthor.com/

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)
“Inside the Writer’s World: Writing Climate Change” Winnipeg Public Library Joan Thomas/Ariel Gordon (2023)
“Approaching Multilingual Fiction” with Matthew Tétreault (2023)

 ASSOCIATIONS/MEMBERSHIPS

Member — The Writers’ Union of Canada
Mid-Career Artist — as designated by Manitoba Arts Council
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)
Past Member — Write Clicks, a Winnipeg River/Winnipeg city alliance: a critique circle formed in 2021
Member — Winnipeg River Arts Council
Member — Manitoba Writers’ Guild

Elbows up, eh?

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I have workshopped one-on-one with Armin Wiebe, MaryLou Driedger, Carolyn Gray, Lauren Carter, Lindsay Wong, Katherena Vermette, Frances Koncan, Ariel Gordon, Nora Decter and Anna Leventhal. My short stories have been edited by dozens of periodical and anthology editors including Bruce Meyer, Donna Besel, Michael Mirolla, James Fisher, Rob McLennan and other well-regarded individuals from the UK, the US, and Australia. Influential courses include, “So You Want To Write Indigenous Characters…” Manitoba Writers’ Guild (2019), “Climate Change in Fiction” MAC (2021), “Crafting POV in Fiction” (2021), “Character Workshop with Lauren Carter” (2021), “Mastering Dialogue with Sharon Bala” (2022), “Inside the Writer’s World: Writing Climate Change” Winnipeg Public Library Joan Thomas/Ariel Gordon (2023), “Approaching Multilingual Fiction,” with Matthew Tétreault (2023).

 PUBLISHED WORKS

Summary:

  • 144 short stories, flash fiction, essays, excerpts, poems, and interviews published in periodicals, anthologies, and contests. More than 850 submissions overall.
  • Pieces accepted in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, and several other countries.
  • Four stories translated into Spanish.
  • A collection of short stories, “Pinching Zwieback” launched in the fall of 2023. (At Bay Press, Winnipeg). The collection was accepted by the first publisher to which it was submitted.
  • An interview and several short stories are being translated into Farsi for publication in Iran.
  • A debut novel is underway with a spring 2026 launch date.

Details:

2016: 16 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 9 🍁, 6 UK, 1 US

2017: 20 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 4 🍁, 1 India, 7 UK, 8 US.

Note: 2017 short stories Include: Best of Fiction on the Web: 1996-2017 ISBN: 9780992693916 (ISBN10: 9780992693, ISBN13:9780992693) and The Machinery: Fauna ISBN: 9781544723266.

2018: 16 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 6 🍁, 4 UK, 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 2 Anthology (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: 16 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 3 🍁, 2 UK, 1 Australia, 3 Iran, 7 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, print ISBN: 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)

“Groota Pieter” — short story, Pact Press (Australia), “We Refugees” Anthology, print

“Fast and Steep” — short story, Riddle Fence (Ca), Issue 34, paid print 🍁

“Holthacka’s Quandary” — short story, Lunate Fiction (UK)

“Shade Tree Haven” — short story, (mac)ro(mic) (US)

“My Writing Day” — CNF essay, my (small press) writing day (Ca) 🍁

“Our German Relative” — short story, Xmas Stories (Iran)

2020: 14 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 4 🍁, 3 UK, 4 US, 1 Iran, 2 Intl

“The Business of Saving Souls” — short story, Literally Stories (UK)

“The Log Boom” — short story, in “A Fork in the Road,” 2019 Special Theme Edition Anthology of River Poets Journal (US), print

“Encampment” — short story, Tiny Seed Journal (US)

“Regrets de Foie Gras”— short story, Literally Stories (UK), May 2020

“The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon” — short story, Agnes and True (Ca), paid online, Summer 2020 (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023) 🍁

“My Life as a Corkscrew” — a CNF essay “On Writing” in Blank Spaces (Ca), June 2020, print 🍁

“Piece of My Heart” — short story, Pulp Literature, (Ca), paid print 🍁

“Away Game” — short story, Quail Bell Magazine, (US), paid print

Interview — Maysam Kandej Talks (Iran), https://maysam.id.ir/talks online, August 2020

“My Life as a Corkscrew” — a CNF essay “On Writing” in the Just Voices anthology (Ca), September 2020, print ISBN: 9781999290375 (ISBN10: 1999290372) 🍁

“The Sunshine Girl” — short story, Cowboy Jamboree Magazine (US), Fall 2020 (John Prine Tribute issue), print and online (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)

“Died Rich” — short story, Fiction on the Web (UK), September 2020

“Baloney, Hot Mustard and Metal Filings” — short story, WordCity Monthly (Intl), September 2020 (“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)

“Our German Relative” — short story, WordCity Monthly (Intl), December 2020

2021: 10 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 3 🍁, 4 UK, 2 US, 1 Intl

“Interview with Contributor Mitchell Toews” — Blank Spaces (Ca), January 8, 2020 🍁

“So Are They All” — short story and interview, Literally Stories (UK), February 14, 2021(“Pinching Zwieback” 2023)

“Fast and Steep” — short story, CommuterLit “Love Stories,” (Ca), February 14, 2021 🍁

“The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon” — short story, Literally Stories (UK), March 9, 2021

“Fast and Steep” — short story, Fiction on the Web (UK), March 29, 2021

“Featured Artist — Mitch Toews” Winnipeg River Arts Council, the interview was written by Donna Besel (Ca), June 2021 🍁

“The Log Boom” — short story, WordCity Monthly (Intl), July 2021

“In the Dim Light Beyond the Fence” — short story, The Twin Bill (US), July 13, 2021

“Sweet Caporal” — short story, Rivanna Review (US), September, paid print

“Fast and Steep” — short story, Fenechty Anthology (UK), print

2022: 13 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 6 🍁, 4 US, 3 Intl

“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-Toews ISBN: 9781989642351 (ISBN10: 1989642357 ISBN13 9781989642351) 🍁

“Sanctuary Quandary” — short story, WordCity Monthly (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: 978-1-7387167-1-5 🍁

“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 (Ca-Intl) November 2022

“The Sewing Machine” — short story, Rivanna Review (US), paid print, December 2022

2023: 16 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 2 🍁,1 UK, 2 Aus, 3 US, 8 Iran

“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: -13. 979-8391845034

“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 and the Craigflower Bus” — short story, Hawkshaw Press, “Hardboiled and Loaded with Sin: A Noir Anthology” edited by Dianne Pearce (US), anthology, print. Fall 2023. ISBN: 9781957224046

“Piece of My Heart” — flash fiction, Mennotoba (Ca), May 8, 2023 🍁

Short stories Sweet Caporal (23-May-08); Our German Relative (23-May-15); Away Game (23-May-23); A Plum of a Night (23-Jun-08); A Cultivated Halloween (23-Jul-17); Piece of My Heart (23-Jul-28); New War – Old Technology (23-Oct-31); The Seven Songs (23-Dec-04) appear on https://toews.ir/all

“The Seven Songs” short story, published in Issue 9 of Rivanna Review (US), 2023

2024: 7 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts | 1 🍁, 1 US, 5 Iran

“The Sunshine Girl” is included in a paperback anthology by Cowboy Jamboree Press called “Prine Primed.” It’s a collection of “John Prine-themed essays and Prine-inspired/flavoured short fiction.” Anthology edited by Adam Van Winkle (US) ISBN: 9798883341105 2024 (This story appears with the permission of At Bay Press, publisher of the 2023 short story collection, “Pinching Zwieback,” in which “The Sunshine Girl” is included.

Short stories Hundred Miles an Hour 24-Feb-15; Schutzengel 24-May-31; I Am Otter 24-Jul-04; The Sewing Machine 24-Oct-25; Our Better Angels 24-Dec-28 appear in https://toews.ir/all (Iran)

Esaay in “Why I Wrote This Book” Miramichi Reader (Ca) 2024 🍁

2025: 16 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/reviews | 7 🍁, 2 UK, 6 US, 1 FR

“The Seven Songs,” short story, first published by Fictive Dream in 2017, appears in Fiction on the Web (UK), February 10, 2025. Reader comment: […] “a huge payoff…I’m glad I read it” […]

“Our German Relative,” short story, first published by Red Fez (now defunct) in 2016, is featured in the February 15, 2025, online issue of the literary site 7th-Circle Pyrite (US). Editor Keiraj M. Gillis: […] “achieves uncommonly seen balance, the simultaneous navigation of two distinct lanes as they relate to tone and theme… a gentleness and authenticity, while also tapping into the heaviness of religious oppression” […]

“Bouncing Baby Boy” poem, published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal (Paris, FR) March 6, 2025 Publisher Strider Mark Jones: […] “originality of voice, concept and language, the internal atmospheres and imagery in place and time” […]

“The Preacher’s Wife,” short story, first published by Fiction on the Web in 2016 as “The Preacher and His Wife” was reprised in Rivanna Review (US) on March 15, 2025

“Shade Tree Diplomacy” short story, in Literary Heist (Ca), March 20, 2025. 🍁

“The Margin of the River,” short story, first published by CommuterLit in 2016, will be presented in Literally Stories (UK), April 10, 2025

“All Our Swains Commend Her,” short story, first published in PULP Literature in 2022, published in Chiron Review (US) in Summer Edition, June 2025

“Pass it to Freddie” boarded Toronto’s CommuterLit (Ca) the week of April 14-18, 2025 🍁 […] “a powerful story…” […]

“Schutzengel” in 7th-Circle Pyrite (US), June 21, 2025

(Another) Coffee Chat with Mitchell Toews — Blank Spaces Magazine, June 6, 2025 (Ca) 🍁

The poem, “This Older Dude Over at Conchita’s Up North Main This Morning,” received an Honourable Mention in the annual Manitoba Writers’ Guild Rabindranath Tagore Poetry Competition and appeared on the contest’s website. June 06, 2025 (Ca) 🍁

“Night Bandits,” short story, published in Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine (SBLAAM) (US) in its fall/winter 2025 edition, September 1, 2025

The poem, “Shade Tree Haven,” in Grit Quarterly (US), September 1, 2025

“Ahead, Go,” in CommuterLit (Ca) the week of September 15, 2025

“The Light Pool” in PULP Literature (Ca) 🍁 Issue 48, Autumn
2025

“Review of Pitfall (At Bay Press), 325 pages, by Terry Kirk,” in Literary Heist (Ca) 🍁 December 21, 2025

=========================================

Publication Count Graphic September 10, 2025:

TOTAL: 144 short stories/flash fiction/interviews/essays/poems/podcasts in total out of approximately 850 submissions.

 CONTESTS-PRIZES-AWARDS
2015-Oct 28/2025. . .

27 of Mitchell Toews’ stories have been chosen as longlist, shortlist, finalist or winner in literary contests around the world. Last UPDATED: 2025-11-07

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 four 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” Second Runner-up in the 2022 PULP Literature Raven Short Story Contest. 🇨🇦🍁

“Winter in the Sandilands” was named to the Shortlist for the 2023 PULP Literature Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest. (750-word max.) 🇨🇦🍁

“Saskatchewan” placed on the Longlist for the 2023 Dave Williamson National Short Story Competition 🇨🇦🍁

“Mr. R” made it to the Longlist for the 2023 Bill MacDonald Prize for Prose sponsored by the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop Annual International Writing Contest 🇨🇦🍁

“Saskatchewan” made the Shortlist for the nationwide 2023 Nona Macdonald Heaslip $15,000 “Best Canadian Short Story” Competition and Award sponsored by Exile Quarterly. (Getting close…) 🇨🇦🍁

“All Our Swains Commend Her” is one of PULP Literature’s (Vancouver, B.C.) 2023 PUSHCART PRIZE nominees 🇨🇦🍁 “A highly skilled piece of writing with a lot to say about the way we live and how we treat one another.” —Leo X Robertson

“Parade Day” made the Longlist for 2024 PULP Literature Raven Short Story Contest 🇨🇦🍁

“The Light Pool” made the Longlist for the 2025 PULP Literature Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest Longlist. March 2025. 🇨🇦🍁

“The Lunker Jack” placed third in the 27th Annual NOWW Writing Contest, Bill MacDonald Prize for Prose – Short Fiction May 2025 🇨🇦🍁 Judge Rebekah Skochinski: “This story captures what it’s like to leave the protective cocoon of family and ritual—in this instance, by learning how to ride a snow machine, going ice fishing, and discovering how to make friends. Both an adventure and a return to the poignant moments of childhood, where one takes their first steps toward independence.”

“This Older Dude Over at Conchita’s Up North Main This Morning” was named to the Shortlist for the 2025 Rabindranath Tagore Poetry Competition, May 2025, 🇨🇦🍁

“This Older Dude Over at Conchita’s” was named to the longlist for the 2025 PULP Literature Hummingbird Flash Fiction Contest 🇨🇦🍁

“All Our Swains Commend Her,” published in Pulp Literature, has been nominated by the magazine for the 2025 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, Oct 2025, 🇨🇦🍁
https://pulpliterature.com/announcing-our-nominees-for-the-2025-journey-prize/

Details about the award can be found here: https://journeyprize.moksha.io/…/journey…/guidelines

“Second Helping at Conchita’s Diner,” First Runner-up for the 2024 PULP Literature Raven Short Story Contest 🇨🇦🍁This is Mitch’s 27th short/longlist, finalist, runner-up, etc. placement in a contest or prize.

 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.”)

 READINGS

  • Voices Launch, McNally Robinson, Winnipeg, MB, 2016
  • PULP Literature Issue Launch, Vancouver, BC, 2017
  • Manitoba Writers’ Guild, Artspace, Winnipeg, MB, 2019
  • Prosetry, Jessica Lake, MB, 2019
  • Driedger Readings, Winnipeg, MB, 2019
  • Victoria Writers’ Society, AGM—Open mic, 2020
  • 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.)
  • Appearances on Manitoba Writers’ Guild monthly Zoom critique circle
  • “An Evening with the Authors” with excerpts from “All Our Swains Commend Her” and the “Pinching Zwieback” story, “Fast and Steep” at the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum, a pre-launch event for “Pinching Zwieback” and sharing the stage with authors Faith Eidse and Charity Schellenberg who are both launching memoirs, May 9, 2023. The video is posted here: https://youtu.be/oxypMlbIOJA (My contribution starts at 12:55.) More info on “Pinching Zwieback: https://atbaypress.com/creators/detail/mitchell-toews
  • “The Listening Room” Open Mic Sessions in Lac du Bonnet, MB sponsored by the Fire and Water Festival in the historic St. John’s Anglican Church: Mar 22/23, Apr 12/23, May 10/23, May 24/23, June 14/23, June 28/23, Dec 3/23, Jan 7/24, Jan 24/24, Feb 14/24, Mar 13/24, Mar 27/24, Apr 10/24, Jun 26/24, Sept 7/24 (Porch Party), Sept 25/24, Oct 10/24, Feb 26/25, June 11/25, Sept 10/25, Sept 24/25, Oct 8/25, Nov 12/25…
  • Readings, Discussions, and Question & Answer for the debut collection of short stories, Pinching Zwieback (a McNally Robinson bestselling “Paperback Pick” fiction) and other work:  Nov 2/23 – MHM Books & Borscht  Mennonite Heritage Museum​, Abbotsford​, BC; Nov 8/23 – Hybrid Book Launch with host Sue Sorensen and authors Ariel Gordon (“Siteseeing”) and Mitchell Toews (“Pinching Zwieback”) at ​McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park, Winnipeg, MB;​ Nov 9/23​ Lac du Bonnet ​Arts Centre ​Ariel Gordon and Mitchell Toews with local musical guests; Nov 15/23 –  Mennonite H​eritage V​illage, Steinbach​​, MB with local authors; Nov 18/23 -​ The Public​ Brewhouse, S​teinbach, MB​​​ with MC award-winning author Andrew Unger; Nov 21/23 -​ Altona Library; Nov 22/23 -​ Pinawa Library; Nov 23/23 -​ Winkler Library; Nov ​28/23 – Morden Library – Dec 3/23 – ​Fireside Book Market, Park Theatre, Winnipeg, MB; Jan 25/24 – Gordie’s Coffee House Open Mic​, Winnipeg, MB; Brandon Western Regional Library – Feb 29/24 (Book reading and workshop); Mar 23/24 Book Club, Steinbach; Apr 17/24 Millenium Library Wpg “Embracing Your Identity” student workshop; May 16/24 Book Club, Gimli; Jun 12/24 Jake Epp Library Steinbach; July 25/24 Lac du Bonnet Regional Library; Sept 13/24 Miriam Toews Residence Event, Steinbach; Sept 28/24 Gaynor Family Regional Library, Selkirk; Oct 22 “Plotting our Roots” Theatre Projects Manitoba Wpg; Feb 22/25 Author Signing, Indigo, St. Vital Centre, Winnipeg, ; June 6/25 2nd annual Manitoba Writers’ Guild Rabindranath Tagore Poetry Competition Awards Ceremony and Poetry Reading, Wpg; Jun 18/25 Spring Into Summer with a Wednesday of Wild & Wonderful Words at Sookrams Brewing, Wpg; June 18/25 Interview Arts, Loggers, and Leftovers with Artist paul Toews, KYac Community Radio, Mill City, Oregon; June 19/25 Gordie’s Coffee House Open Mic—”Wang Dang Doodle Season Finale & Fundraiser, Wpg; Sept 25/25 Open Mic, Jake Epp Library, Steinbach; Sept 28/25 Introduce At Bay Press author Terry Kirk and her new book Pitfall (At Bay Press) Wpg; Oct 30/25 Reading, Jake Epp Library, Steinbach …
  • Several readings are recorded here: https://bit.ly/proseBYtoewsYouTube

 WORK IN PROGRESS

A short story collection, “Pinching Zwieback” (At Bay Press) launched Nov 8, 2023. Google: Mitch Toews ISBN13 9781998779055 Pinching Zwieback or go to BookFinder.com.

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 gritty style containing 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. An eclectic range of topics, places, people, and circumstances.

“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.) Collaborator Phil Hossack @philhossackphoto.

Many 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.

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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.

A Fetching Tale

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

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.

https://www.writersunion.ca/news/mirabelle-chiderah-harris-eze-s-dark-wins-2500-prize-short-prose-competition

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.

Treasures small and LARGE

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

[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 Municipaux de 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.

https://www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2021/03/fast-and-steep-by-mitchell-toews.html

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

Print Catalogue

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

As this rabid cannibal of a year winds down, I wonder about my writerly struggle and the artistic return on investment for me as a writer, 2015-2020.

ROI, baby.

Aside from all the “hard work is its own reward,” kind of sentiment, to which I subscribe and to whose driving power I owe one of the best periods of my redheaded life (apart from the baby powder tinged, little league coaching, proud dad/granddad parts), I wondered about how much of an imprint I’ve been given/achieved so far.

What is my gravitas quotient, or lack of same?

Am I #futility or do I stand a chance? There’s no punter (in the UK slang sense) who knows how to handicap me, there’s no Vegas line on my puny literary squirming, like the last water bug of the season making a tiny ripple that no one else notices.

An editor commented recently that I had a unique voice worth publishing. I fought back the urge to argue with her, and in that moment of cessation, found a glimmer. A glimmer not of hope — that sworl of Van Gogh luminant turbulence is still light years away — but a lifeline thrown out to me in the cold, deep water by a compassionate friend.

When I look at my C-V, I see a lot of online acceptances, a lot of out-of-province markets, and several repeat markets. This is telling of the state of the world of fiction, my preferences, my ability, my relative reputation in a world of water bugs, and my inclination to spend the years on the far side of three score with friends and heroes, not the miserable and the banal.

Anyway… I noticed that the attention of the curator for a certain specific geschichte writer list is focused solely on PRINT. I accept that. There’s so much online writing that it makes sense to begin your list with those in print. Not that I’m not proud (and more than a little) of many of my online publications, but, you know — I get it.

So here fellow water bugs, punters, friends, heroes, banal high-horsers out for a romp among the plebs… is my 2015-2020 Print Catalogue, based on about 100 distinct flash fictions and short stories sent out in over 400 submissions all over the English language literary world.

Ca — “A Fisherman’s Story” Rhubarb Magazine Issue 39 2016
Ca — “So Are They All” Voices Vol 16 No.2 2016 Anthology
India — “I am Otter” The Machinery – A Literary Collection 2017
UK — “Nothing to Lose” The Best of Fiction on the Web 1996-2017 2017 Anthology
Ca — “Sweet Caporal at Dawn” Blank Spaces Magazine 2018 Pushcart Prize Nomination
Ca — “Away Game” Pulp Literature Issue 20 2018
Ca — “Sweet Caporal at Dawn” Just Words, Volume 2 2018 Anthology
US — “Groota Pieter” River Poets Journal Special Themed Edition: “The Immigrants” 2018 Anthology
US — “Peacemongers” The MOON magazine: “Out of This World” The Best Short Stories from the MOON Volume 1 2019 Anthology
Australia/US — “Groota Pieter” Pact Press “We Refugees” 2019 Anthology
Ca — “Fast and Steep” Riddle Fence Issue 34 2019
US — “The Log Boom” River Poets Journal Special Themed Edition: “A Fork in the Road” 2020 Anthology
Ca — “My Life as a Corkscrew” (CNF) Blank Spaces Magazine 2020
Ca — “Piece of My Heart” Pulp Literature Issue 27 2020 Winner of the Editors’ Choice in the 2020 Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest
US — “Away Game” Quail Bell Magazine 2020
Ca — “My Life as a Corkscrew” (CNF) Just Words Volume 4 2020 Anthology
US — “The Sunshine Girl” Cowboy Jamboree Magazine John Prine Tribute Issue 2020
Ca — “The Margin of the River” Blank Spaces Magazine 2020 Pushcart Prize Nomination

(Updated 12.4.20)

A few of these are printed on a rolling basis and so may not be out in the wild yet.

I also have 65 stories in various online publications in the US, the UK, and Canada.

One Day on Mars

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

It could be that this fanlit flash (launched May 1 on my Facebook page) has some prescience! For those who love a good conspiracy theory, Romulans, Klingons, and the Orange Menace.

One Day on Mars

Picard: Queen Sensula, do you mean to tell me that the Romulans created and then spread the deadly Space Virus? (Appalled. Much Elizabethan flavour.)

Oh, but I shan’t doubt it, my dear Queen. Those secretive Romulans are capable of…

Queen Sensula, leader of the Teuton Nebula: No, Jean Luc, I’m telling you that, Orangitus, the Klingon ruler means to promote such a theory in order to demonize the Romulans!

Picard: But that’s PREPOSTEROUS! No one in the galaxy would do such a thing… to lie in order to turn the universe against a single planet? Why surely even Orangitus, that PATAK, is not capable of such a VILE RUSE! Why?

Sensula: Don’t call me Shirley… and not only is Orangitus accusing the Romulans, but he also has impugned the Intergalactic Health Organization! Accused them of being in league with the Romulans!

(She continues with smouldering, Fiona Hill-like intensity) Why? Orangitus knows these three things: One, that if he persuades the universe of the Romulan guilt, he can exact stiff penalties from the rich Romulans. He will claim these penalties as reparations for Klingon, citing his planet’s devastation—Klingon has suffered more than a quarter of the deaths from the Space Virus.

Two, Orangitus will pit himself against the Romulans—a race already distrusted—and glean political power for himself in the bargain. Plus, his staggering accusations cover up his own bumbling mismanagement of the Space Virus on his home planet!

Picard: My, my! Do go on dear lady, please.

Sensula: Third and last, but most cruelly, Orangitus KNOWS that by assassinating the character of the IHO, he will be opening up a path to ignore their universally-agreed creeds and laws. Instead of sending vaccines—once they are formulated—to the universe’s poorest planets and systems…

Picard interjects: Is that the usual IHO mandate?

Sensula, nodding her two heads: Yes, it is the time-honoured way; to protect the most vulnerable. But Orangitus will wreck the IHO’s reputation and then force other planets and races to bend to his will by threat of economic and military sanctions! Klingon and Orangitus will get the vaccine and only once their selfish needs are met will the rest of the universe be saved!

Picard, cursing obscurely: BY ANDROMEDA’S STRAIN, you say! My word… What are we to do, oh, wise Sensula?

Sensula: Get off our privileged asses and VOTE the swine out in November.

Picard: MAKE IT SO!

 

(And yes, I’m aware it is May Fourth and I also know the difference between the two space sagas and the fanaticism of true fans. Nannoo-nannoo. )

Winter Shrinkage

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

My contribution to Earth Day, April 22, 2020.

With sorrow for coronavirus victims—direct and indirect… past, present, and future.

With hope for humankind; hope that we change the things that brought this pandemic upon us.

 

Winter Shrinkage

by Mitchell Toews

It was an average winter. I spent idle days virtual-thumbing through online catalogues, dreaming ready-to-assemble dreams, exercising my PayPal muscles and the Charter of Rights and Free Shipping. But one morning, Janice and I were unnerved — not a little — when we were forced to climb out of bed like U.S. Marines going over the side of a troop carrier in a Turner Classic Movie.

“It’s that shrinking virus,” our doctor’s young voice boomed after a half-hour wait, my damn cell phone now the size and shape of our Trolstrop end table and just as heavy.

Shrinking? But how? This is Canada, not Skull Island! Was this to be our polio? Our influenza? Our Walking Dead, now come to pass?

And it was true. We were shrinking. All — or at least, most of — the people in the world were getting proportionately smaller. Just like The Atom or Ant-Man in the primary colour universe of my pre-teens but without the attendant super-powers. Unable to undo my lifelong sense of divinely assigned supremacy, I felt as though it was not us shrinking, but the rest of the world growing. The world was suddenly upside-down, growing enormous due to some horrendous mistake, through no fault of the people of the Earth.

I frowned through the window at the grinning, darting chickadees. The size of flying monkeys. Disturbed, I imagined a population of mutant human giants — immune, immense — clomping around in Adidas Gazelles the size of actual gazelles; amok in our shrunken Canadianopolises, now Kandors, with no tiny Supergirl, boy or man to protect us. I want to be immune, I thought, a little pouty.

#

After a month or so, for amusement, Jan and I sit atop our Frukskol serving tray. Its buoyancy — pounded out of a bucket full of ground Amazonian treetops — floated us serenely during our laps around the meltwater in the swimming pool. A cat, swaggering poolside big as a dragon, watches us with yellow eyes and we stay in the middle until it pounces on the mini-deliveryman, here to drop off our latest package of mini-toilet paper rolls. He screams like a robin chick fallen from the nest.

“Maybe we all just need to go back to eating more carbs?” I suggested as we paddled along, making smooth synchronized strokes with our Svart Svan salad serving spoons. The plastic is so light — made with real boreal forest tree flour!

Our desperation grows. We succumb, weary of our teeniness. Despondent in our miniature solitude we sit each evening in the never-ending flickering blue light that shines down upon us like our own personal drive-in movie… reclining, as we do, on a stack of expired Netflix gift cards, we watch the pandemic on TV, eating popcorn puffs the size of cantaloupe. We the shrunken, armed only with our snacks.

“I’m glad about one thing!” I posted online with cheery intent to distant unseen friends in less-effected regions — racing home before they can no longer see over their dashboards. “This malady does not affect our heroes…” I wrote. “Gretzky is as big as ever; he hasn’t shrunk an inch.”

“That CBC interview last night?” A buddy texts me back. “That’s just an old replay. He’s actually the size of an Ütfart flower vase now, I saw him on the news last week.”

How belittling. I find it on YouTube. Gretzky, his hand-puppet sweater tucked in on one side, wearing a Jofa helmet made out of a thimble.

And what about the billionaires? They too have become tiny but, their wealth remains Costco-sized. They urge us to keep doing “normal” things, to keep the economy going despite our dimunuation. “People may shrink but our economy must remain LARGE,” they say with conviction. Right… They don’t have to dodge hungry sea gulls on their way to the Wendy’s drive-thru in a Barbie Star Traveller motor home! We do — we feed the trickle; the trickle-way-way-down.

#

But then the tide turned. Stealthily, the blessed Tillväxt came among us, lifting Her cloak tails discretely as She crept along, and we began to grow. Praise Tillväxt.

“A long cool woman in a black dress,” one alleged eyewitness reported. Soon after, steady enlargement came announced only by the smallest of shudders, like a cement truck hitting a pothole outside your office building. Humankind began its journey back.

One day, I noticed how it only took me a few minutes to stamp out a text to our daughter, whose small children were like a string of ellipses, following behind her, their 14 pt. ampersand mom. I jump on the keys like Tom Hanks to send out my message, ending with, #feelingweighty. r u guys growing? I ask, with joyous smiley faces on a field of red hearts.

Incrementally, day by day, our statures grew. All of us, around the world. O blessed renewal! Some claimed it was on pace with the mercury in the thermometer. Others cleaved to the ascendant gospel of the Tillväxt, now the third-leading religion worldwide. Sun theory or benign magical Mother Almighty, I welcomed our return to normal and the coming warmth of summer. I could hardly wait to be tall enough to turn on the air conditioning!

#

Whatever it was that caused it all, whatever the scientists can cipher — once they are again big enough to operate their laboratories and not self-immolate in the flame of their Bunsen burners — the human population enlarged. Jan and I soon found ourselves standing eyeball-to-bullnose with our Fullspäckorp kitchen island countertop. Progress!

Comforted by the unknown natural vaccine, the grace of Tillväxt, or whatever, I luxuriated, expectant, my anticipation sky-high. I relished the mental imagery: Visions of humankind, rising up and reaching outwards like that pansy caught in time-lapse photography on The Nature Channel.

I renewed my password-protected online consumerism but it felt a little off, as though something had changed in me during my big-small-big passage. Disconcerting thoughts filled my head. Packed freeways. Smog-filled urban skies. Jet trails playing Hangman in the sky above. Mountains and forests and glaciers and clean water once again going, going, gone.

Yes, we’ll grow back. We’ll unshrink! Once more the human race will reach titan proportions and resume our species’ ordained privilege; our filthy, greedy, pleasure-dome domination of the planet and its lesser beings — flora, fauna, and anything else we can batter and fry, cut and pulp, exploit and extirpate.

Until that is, the next usurper comes to take away our crown — invited unknowingly by we humans and the havoc we create as we attempt to hold dominion over nature, acting för stor for our britches, as always, I fear.

End

 

CC BY ND

“Here’s what the coronavirus pandemic can teach us about tackling climate change.”

“Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it.”

 

 

 

The Fighting Writing Fool

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

In the first round of a tough fight, only a FOOL shouts, “I yam fuh-reaking’ lovin’ dis crap!” usually just before being knocked out by an infinitely more dangerous opponent.

Also, although I own a black toque, I ain’t Rocky and the world of fiction ain’t sides of beef. Hell, I ain’t even Italian.

Undeterred, I move forward, absorbing jabs and body shots. Relentless, bloody, concussed—I stumble on. It feels good to hit, it feels even better to be able to TAKE a hit…

Alls I’m sayin’ HEAH, is… I’ve been writing a lot lately. And, like heavyweight champ, Winslow Homer, I’ve been experimenting boldly.

The result is a small but wiry catalogue of recent work that I am actively pitching or intend to pitch to upper-tier, paying mags. Sure, some of these are gonna get knocked out before the first paragraph is read. It’s likely to be a bit of a bloodbath and “We’ve chosen not to include your story at this time,” will be spray-painted across the subway cars of my submission train more than once.

And that’s okay.  I won’t wail every time I get rejected but I will let you know when I land a punch! (I’ll grunt.)

The Mighty Hartski—A 7,400-word rommedriewe, from a snowmobile crash on a frozen field to a shared understanding, bedside in Bethesda. Still brooding over this one, ’cause I’ve been writing it for fifty years.

Tiptoe—Teenage hangovers hurt the most. Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and a smoky donut shop on Osborne.

Grudge—Worked hard for this one, put some Beta readers through their paces too. Waiting for one more critique before I set this Victoria story free. A crime spree down by the Bay Street Bridge.

Red Lightman—You can’t spell empathy without r-e-s-p-e-c-t. 2,400-words.

“I’m burly and brawny,
not squirrely or scrawny
and if you don’t like me
that’s tough.

I shit thunder and lightning
and everything frightening
and where I come from,
that’s enough.” 

Hazel Creek—1,500 words, set in the place where I live, sharp and hard as life can be.

The Three Sisters—The type of story that gets you mad: At me, at the sad protagonist—pure as the wind, at the sister who won’t play along. 3,400 words.

~ ~ ~

FIND recent stories of mine online here: “Shade Tree Haven” in (mac)ro(mic)…  “Holthacka’s Quandary” in Lunate Fiction…“The Business of Saving Souls” in Literally Stories…  “Encampment” in TINY SEED LITERARY JOURNAL.

COMING SOON to Literally Stories, Blank Spaces, Agnes and True, and Pulp Literature.

 

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. 

 

 

 

 

Mak’n Sparks

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Janice and I spent a month over Christmas and New Year visiting family and dog-sitting in BC. The majority of the time had us in Victoria. While we were there I contacted the Victoria Writers’ Society to see if they had any events or functions taking place during our stay.

They did: the Society’s Annual General Meeting was on the slate and the Secretary, Ms. Sheila Martindale, invited me to sign-up for their Open Mic, which, she assured me was the main activity of the evening.

So I did: reading a sightly abridged version of “Sweet Caporal at Dawn”. It was fun and Jan & I really enjoyed the various readings. Lots of grab-ya-by-the-throat poetry and some fine essay and memoir pieces.

A reading I found particularly entertaining—and relatable—was Ron Stefik’s bright, funny ramble, “Mak’n Sparks”. I’ve received Ron’s permission to share it here.

Like Conrad led us upriver into a world of winding darkness and deception, so—conversely—Ron takes us downstream, away from lives filled with confusion and dilemma.

We are brought into the quiet of the workshop: the place of washer-filled Cheeze-Whiz jars suspended by their lids from the underside of a shelf… the land of pegboard and felt pen outlines on the wall… the sanctuary of our favourite tools—their double-insulated smells, their familiarity, their loyalty, their simple ways.

But also the power tool’s growling capacity for raw, emergency room-feeding might!

“I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.”—Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

 

Mak’n Sparks

by Ron Stefik

I enthusiastically read the latest Canadian Tire advertising flyer that had arrived in the mail.  These are basically glossy hardware porn. The centrefold display caught my attention, the item between the stepladder with open legs and the set of socket wrenches. Angle grinders were on sale.

I have always felt a desire to own a portable angle grinder. Not an actual need, but a desire. When I had worked in the design office at Strathcona Steel in Edmonton, I would occasionally have reason to go down to the cavernous shop floor; to get a measurement, to get a progress update, or to get yelled at for not wearing safety boots. Metal shaping and welding stations were busy all around as I navigated across the factory, but those using angle grinders seemed to have the most satisfying tasks. Like Prometheus delivering fire, labourers cast long showers of fiery sparks to the howling accompaniment of their empowering device. Here be men!

Ownership of such a tool might lead to identification of a previously unrecognized daily need for such a thing, and would likely inspire a worthy addition to my story series, “The Joy of…”.  The Joy of Radial Arm Saws, The Joy of Hedge Trimmers…..The Joy of Angle Grinders…..intriguing titles like that.

Scanning the store shelves in my quest for self-worth, I suppressed a rising panic this item would be sold-out and unavailable to the remaining local angle grinding citizenry. Such disappointing ventures are reminiscent of potential dates that never show, an unfulfilled promise of a happily ever after future. Discovering my equivalent of the Golden Fleece craftily located on a lower shelf, with fevered anticipation and sweaty hands I made my selection from the inventory. I had briefly considered using some of my hoard of 5 and 10 cent Canadian Tire coupons to finance the investment, but wisely decided to maintain this bankroll for a future spending spree, such as the purchase of an electric lighting fixture to donate to an Amish charity. However, I did also acquire a 10-pack of grinding wheels. I was sure to identify many things around the house that could benefit from a good grinding. I could hardly wait to get home and start annoying the neighbours.

Alone in the privacy of my workshop, I savoured the moment of unveiling. The box included an instruction book sealed in a plastic bag. This would preserve it in pristine unopened condition for the benefit of future generations. It was tough plastic, and curiosity getting the better of me, I used the grinder to get it open. A thick booklet, it was printed in a multitude of languages, for the convenience of angle grinding Swahili bushmen and Bedouin travellers with long extension cords. Of the 32-page English section, the first thirty-one and a half pages were dedicated to safety advisories of the “never do this” variety. Such as using this power tool to open a plastic bag.

As it would happen, I had recently brought home from a neighbourhood free-pile a damaged air compressor. I did not see any need to compress air but had a vague idea of using the attached small pressure tank for a future inventive project. It was welded on. My first grinding task! Safety glasses and ear covers on, I attacked the task with suitable angle grinding élan and vigour. Electric motor whining at a satisfyingly high pitch, sparks flew as I spread destruction, Jedi warrior descendant upon a metallic foe. Within minutes I transformed a once useful piece of equipment into bits of scrap. This was progress!

Having satisfied my initial primal urge to cut through metal, I await the next necessity that will present itself to use this latest weapon in my home-improvement arsenal. That jam jar that has been getting a bit tough to open? Perhaps a bit of grinding to remove the lid is in order. Or perhaps a passerby on an electric shopping scooter will overturn in front of my home and require my rescue with a portable angle grinder to cut them free from the wreckage. One can only hope.

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).

out of this world pic sm

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.