Pinching Zwieback Events

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Image: Author Mitchell Toews reads at the annual Prosetry event at Jessica Lake, in the Winnipeg River basin of eastern Manitoba.

Book launches, book chats, readings, panel discussions, and writing sessions coming up as Mitchell Toews’ debut collection of short stories is mixed, proofed, punched, cut, pinched, and baked.

Action shot pinched from The Steinbach Tribune

Pinching Zwieback: Made-up Stories from the Darp (Updates and schedule changes provided asap)

Nov 2 Mennonite Heritage Museum, Abbotsford “Books and Borscht” meal at noon, book chat at 1 P.M.

The view in Abbotsford, Nov 2. Borscht (or Chicken Noodle, your choice) preceded a reading to a friendly and engaged audience. Host Robert Martens (a poet and author himself) did an exceptional job of introduction and “connectivity” for the well-attended gathering. Excerpts from “Swimming in the Bazavluk,” “The Raspberry Code,” “The Peacemongers,” and “”The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon” were presented. Thanks to Robert, the MHM, and Jennifer Martens for this excellent and cordial event! Also to attendees from Vancouver, Matsqui (via Steinbach), Yarrow, Lynden, and beyond!

Nov 8 McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park, Winnipeg Mitch will read from “Pinching Zwieback” and will join Ariel Gordon (co-author-poet, with Brenda Schmidt) who will introduce “Siteseeing,” a book in which, “The poets wrote about the natural world and people making their way through it all.”  The evening will be hosted by Sue Sorensen (another At Bay Press author) and Sue will read for Brenda who cannot be in attendance this evening. 7 P.M.

The always-entertaining (insightful, convivial, talented…) Ariel Gordon

Nov 9 St. John’s Heritage Church & Arts Centre, Lac du Bonnet with Ariel Gordon (“Siteseeing”), Mitch and At Bay Press publisher, Matt Joudrey. Local musicians will complement the readings: singer-songwriters Bernadette Carlson, Lefty Auger (Daryl Reimer), and Paul McIntosh. 7 P.M. This event will rock.

Nov 15 Mennonite Heritage Village, Local Authors Night in Steinbach with Host Nita Wiebe, and Elma Koop, Mary Lou Driedger, Noreen Janzen, and Mitch. 7 P.M.

Mary Lou Driedger (Lost on the Prairie, Sixties Girl), Andrew Unger (Once Removed, The Best of the Bonnet) and Mitch discuss Steinbach—the literary city—at The Public Brewhouse.

Nov 18 The Public Brewhouse, Steinbach with EmCee Andrew Unger and co-hosts Dave Driedger and John “Hans” Neufeld for beer (or tasty non-alcoholic alternatives) and book chat. 7 P.M. (Arrive early—limited seating.)

Nov 21 Public Library, Altona 7 P.M. Book launch.

Nov 22 Public Library, Pinawa 7 P.M. Book launch.

Nov 23 Public Library, Winkler 7 P.M. Book launch.

Nov 28 Public Library, Morden 7 P.M. Book launch.

Mitch reading at a venue in Vancouver for PULP Literature Magazine, with daughter Meg and granddaughter Hazel in attendance.

Dec 3 Fireside Book Market, Park Theatre, Winnipeg with authors and publishers from four local presses for a fall fest of book sales, signings, and lots of book chatter. 10 A.M.—6 P.M.

Dec 13 The Listening Room Open Mic, Lac du Bonnet 7 P.M. Mitch will sign-up on the Open Mic list and read a few selections from Pinching Zwieback in the historic St. John’s Heritage Church & Arts Centre. (Books for sale, here at one of Mitch’s “happy places.”)

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Dates TBA in the Public Libraries in Kenora (2023) and Lac du Bonnet (Spring 2024)

https://atbaypress.com/books/detail/pinching-zwieback

On child birthdays we toss the kids in the air, make wishes and offer a “pinch to grow an inch.” Pinching Zwieback is a gathering of pinches as a young man, dough in the hands of powerful albeit diminished women that rises in the oven of cultural expectation to a better understanding of his place in the world beyond the kitchen of his creation… Life is reaching for the light, which never falters even as the human characters flicker and fade.—Poet Laureate, feminist, and author Linda Rogers Van Krugel

~ ~ ~

Mitch Toews speaks from the margins of small-town society, claiming a space for the underdog and the undervalued. His characters must go through all manner of tests and challenges, but in the end–love wins. —Ralph Friesen, author of Between Earth & Sky: Steinbach’s First 50 Years and Dad, God, and Me.

~ ~ ~

Moves like a tide through visceral daily experiences—quintessentially Canadian, some heart wrenching, each powerfully evocative.”—Alanna Rusnak, Blank Spaces Magazine.

~ ~ ~

Mitchell Toews’ stories range from Tom Sawyer-like tales of boyhood squabbles to the heartbreak of family dysfunction to the cruelty of small-town hypocrisy. Hilarious and tragic in turn, Toews explores facets of Mennonite life that other Mennonite writers have not touched.—Armin Wiebe, author of The Salvation of Yasch Siemens and Grandmother and many more.

BOOK REVIEWS, AUTHOR INTERVIEWS, COMMENTARY & “BLURBS”

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

“Pinching Zwieback: Made-up Stories from the Darp”

Overview; Artistic Creed

I come to writing fiction from the storyteller’s places: the campfire, the backseat on a long drive, the bar stool.

Everyday people’s stories inspire me because they demonstrate how extraordinary every life is and allow us to recognize what unites and divides us. As editor, poet, and writer Judith Lawrence of Lambertville, NJ has suggested and what I strive for is, “A unique writer’s voice… the pure untarnished colloquial rawness in the reading. Having something to say… to be startled, drawn into the story, even if it’s in the stillness, or the lines between the lines of the work.*”

*https://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/2013/07/six-questions-for-judith-lawrence.html

Literary Indices

“Pinching Zwieback” is indexed here: Mennonite/s Writing in Canada Bibliography: https://mennonitebibs.wordpress.com/mennonite-s-writing-in-canada-bibliography/

Overall Summary

Nov 16, 2025: Mitchell Toews, since 2016, has been placed on 27 shortlist-longlist-finalist groupings in contests in the US, the UK, and Canada. In addition, Toews was nominated by Pulp Literature for the 2025 Writers’ Trust McClelland Stewart JOURNEY PRIZE for his story “All Our Swains Commend Her” and has received four PUSHCART PRIZE nominations, from three separate periodicals (two in Canada, one in the US).

Pinching Zwieback: A McNally Robinson Bookseller “BEST BOOKS OF THE SEASON” selection, a staff pick, and a multi-week Manitoba bestselling paperback fiction book. #6 across CANADA in January 2024 on the Hamilton Review of Books Indie Bestseller list!

Pinching Zwieback: the Winnipeg Free Press Book Club selection for November 2024. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/book-club?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwyo60BhBiEiwAHmVLJejsiQ1BSxLcUz1km7UP6BI0ggBeBSJNMegjokTfgxfsgxNBemh5ghoCA4cQAvD_BwE

Mitchell Toews: Miramichi Reader’s “Why I Wrote This Book” feature. https://miramichireader.ca/2024/08/why-i-wrote-this-book-issue-33/

Reviews, Launches, Interviews, and Excerpts

Prairie Books NOW Synopsis: Fall/Winter 2023 “These stories portray small-town Mennonite life with humour and poignancy. Linked by a common community and recurrent characters, the stories show families reconfiguring as necessary, young boys growing to be men, and women learning to be bold in the
midst of tight societal expectations.” (At Bay Press, $24.95 pb, 400 pages, isbn: 978-1-998779-05-5)

Free Press Book Club Synopsis: November 19, 2024 “In the 20 linked stories Toews has created, characters pop in and out, are introduced and then briefly forgotten, re-emerging later in the book in a different stage of life, bringing new voices in the form of kids and grandkids along with them... Though these stories are ‘made up from the darp,’ as Toews says, Pinching Zwieback reads like a memoir; the characters Toews has developed feel full, real and relatable.”—Ben Sigurdson, Winnipeg Free Press Literary Editor https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/2024/11/09/mennonite-manitoba-stories-on-tap-for-free-press-book-club

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review Dec 30, 2023 https://www.WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/books/2023/12/30/chekhov-of-the-darp “a stunner…”

“Why I Wrote This Book” feature in The Miramichi Review, August 4, 2024 https://miramichireader.ca/2024/08/why-i-wrote-this-book-issue-33/ “Like most authors, I had numerous reasons to write my book. Legacy, heritage, tell my story my way, and so on. Valid reasons. I had these plus some ulterior motivation…”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review/Author Interview June 13, 2024 (Jake Epp Public Library, Steinbach, MB) https://steinbachonline.com/articles/local-authors-debut-book-strikes-global-chord-with-relatable-tales- “Local author’s debut book strikes global chord…”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review Nov 22, 2023 https://anabaptistworld.org/new-books-for-2023-fiction-books/ “a collection of stories of practical folk discerning across generations what should remain and what should be let go…”

“Pinching Zwieback” story selected as a Mentor Text for the Moving Writers website, a US/Ca site for English teachers, by English teachers. The story Fall from Grace was chosen March 20, 2024 for its strength in illustrating how to: “establish a setting… create a voice… tell one great story… and include a moral to the story.” https://movingwriters.org/2024/03/20/mentor-text-wednesday-fall-from-grace/ “Even if you only give your writers the first two paragraphs of this story, you’re giving them a great mentor text for establishing a setting. Those paragraphs do more than establish the sense of place, but they give a very visceral sense of what it means for the narrator to be in that place. Using the imagery of the first paragraph, and the rules and conditions of the second, we are placed in the youth of the narrator.”

Hollay Ghadery: Rural Writer Spotlight Author Interview Jan 6, 2024 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/oSqzqKJAvXp9KvQm/?mibextid=oFDknk “My focus has been prairie stories. My forthcoming work (a novel, set in Winnipeg and for the majority of the book, in the Canadian boreal wilderness near the 50th parallel) continues in that place so clear to me but also draws into other resonant locations, including Winnipeg, the boreal shield in Manitoba and urban characters and scenes from southwestern British Columbia. I am most often described as a storyteller with grit and I wear that tag with pride.”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review  Dec 20, 2023 https://www.literaryheist.com/articles/stories-from-the-darp/ “Toews has the gift of making other people seen and heard…”

Author Interview Dec 7, 2023 https://winklermordenvoice.ca/services/download.ashx?doc=WinklerVoice120723.pdf “real-life feelings, characters, and places...”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review Dec 5, 2023 https://themeanderer.ca/pinching-zwieback-a-review/ “The stories whisper words of wisdom…”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review Dec 5, 2023 https://bit.ly/GNormanREVIEW_PZ “gritty realism in his characters and a profoundly human strength in his storylines…”

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Review Nov, 2023 https://maryloudriedger2.wordpress.com/2023/11/28/pinching-zwieback/ “poignant, evocative, touching, humorous and heart-wrenching…”

“Pinching Zwieback” Excerpt Nov 27, 2023 https://www.mennotoba.com/excerpt-from-pinching-zwieback-by-mitchell-toews/ 

“Pinching Zwieback” Book Launch/Reading Nov 8, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/live/49xiY1jRSYs “stories filled with life, filled with vitality—written by a storyteller…”

Author Interview Jan 6, 2023 https://www.pressenza.com/2023/06/i-used-to-be-an-animal-lover-conversation-rhys-barbara-mitchell-part-i/ “I strive to ‘ambush’ difficult or inflated personal memories by letting my characters take the story and reshape it…”

Author Interview Feb 14, 2021 https://literallystories2014.com/2021/02/14/literally-reruns-so-are-they-all-by-mitchell-toews/ “a gentle yet unsentimental touch…”

Author Interview Jan 28, 2021 https://www.blankspaces.ca/coffee-chats/coffee-chat-with-mitchell-toews “a quotidian setting, rich descriptions, relatable characters, human strengths and weaknesses on display, sorrow offset with quiet, cathartic humour…”

Author Interview Dec 19, 2019 https://mysmallpresswritingday.blogspot.com/2019/12/mitchell-toews-my-writing-day-and-offer.html “Utter cockwash…” 🙂

Author Interview Nov 14, 2018 https://www.mennotoba.com/mennonite-memes-like-our-food-make-for-a-rich-diet-5-questions-with-author-mitch-toews/ “I was born here and Steinbach and the Mennonite Borscht Belt are a hovering omnipresence in many of my stories…”

Commentary

Armin Wiebe 

• Mitchell Toews’ stories range from Tom Sawyer-like tales of boyhood squabbles to the heartbreak of family dysfunction to the cruelty of small-town hypocrisy. Hilarious and tragic in turn, Toews explores facets of Mennonite life that other Mennonite writers have not touched. 

• Mitchell Toews’ stories add more layers to the world that has given us Patrick Friesen, Lynnette (Dueck) D’anna, Miriam Toews, and Andrew Unger. Racism, class conflict, and economic and religious snobbery form the background for the sometimes comic, sometimes excruciating human dramas experienced by four generations of the Zehen family. 

• With a family bakery at the heart of what links them, these are hockey and baseball stories, love stories, drinking stories, father-son stories, mother-daughter stories, outsider stories, getting even stories, in which characters face high stakes perils, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical, sometimes life and death menacing. 

• From 1874 Russia to 21st century Manitoba and British Columbia, Mitchell Toews’ linked stories present us with a boisterous and poignant family saga unlike any other in Mennonite literature.

• Oba Jung, (“Oh, but son,”) you write good stories. 

—Armin Wiebe, author of The Salvation of Yasch Siemens and Grandmother, and playwright of several productions, including The Recipe, Winnipeg, MB Laughing. http://www.arminwiebe.ca/

Donna Besel

Mitch’s debut collection of short stories, “Pinching Zwieback,” recently received a stellar review in the Winnipeg Free Press and has appeared several times on McNally Robinson Bookstore’s bestseller list for paperback fiction. His book plays homage to the Mennonite language, food, history, and culture but he does not shy away from sharp insights into the limitations of a closed and controlled way of life. Like well-known Manitoba writer Miriam Toews, his writing often explores the clashes of their shared Mennonite background.

—Donna Besel, Lac du Bonnet, MB is a writer and educator, author of Lessons from a Nude Man, and The Unravelling.

Ralph Friesen

Mitch Toews speaks from the margins of small-town society, claiming a space for the underdog and the undervalued. His characters must go through all manner of tests and challenges, but in the end–love wins. Toews has that rare talent for touching your heart and being funny, too.  

—Ralph Friesen of Victoria, BC, author of Between Earth & Sky: Steinbach’s First 50 Years Dad, God, and Me and, most recently, Prosperity Ever Depression Never: Steinbach in the 1930s” https://www.ralphfriesen.com/

Linda Rogers Van Krugel

[…] That is the substance of Pinching Zwieback, rhymes with Steinbach, the town of Toews’ awakening. The linked stories in this premier collection from a senior writer describe the apostate Christian community he is growing into and out of now that the skin he was born in no longer fits. This was always true for the narrators born as outsiders in an outsider religion.

—Linda Rogers, Victoria, BC from her full review of the book. Canadian poet, author, thinker, feminist, and raconteur extraordinaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda Rogers

Zilla Jones

Imbued with the turbulence of an ancestral river, the joy of a toboggan careening down an icy run, and the despair of dreams broken on a distant hockey rink, Mitchell Toews’ stories ask universal questions, about belonging, conforming and dissenting, all the while rooted in the snowdrifts and sun-drenched fields of a small prairie town. The answers emerge hot from the oven, fragrant like the zwieback buns of the title: we find ourselves in our family, and memories, and forgiveness, as familiar and soothing as the worn leather of a much-loved baseball glove.

“. . . ostensibly Mennonite, but the themes of conformity vs dissension, individual vs family, belonging vs alienation are universal.” (Facebook)

—Zilla Jones, Winnipeg, MB, Journey Prize winner and finalist in the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award https://www.transatlanticagency.com/2021/08/27/welcoming-zilla-jones-to-transatlantic/

Alanna Rusnak

Moves like a tide through visceral daily experiences—quintessentially Canadian, some heart wrenching, each powerfully evocative.

—Alanna Rusnak, Blank Spaces Magazine, Ontario https://www.chickenhousepress.ca/arp

Leslie Wakeman

His stories allow us to hold space for challenging our notions on life.

—Leslie Wakeman, writer and educator, Lac du Bonnet, Mb

Rachael Friesen

“I just finished reading the book and absolutely loved it. The snapshots from each character and how the stories flow from one generation to the next were fantastic. Diedrich and Matt were my favourite stories to follow, I cannot wait to purchase a copy for our branch!”

—Rachael Friesen, South Central Regional Library, Altona Branch Administrator

Sue Sorensen

In comments made during her hosting of the Nov 8 book launch event at McNally Robinson Booksellers, Wpg., MB: “. . . stories filled with life, filled with vitality. . . written by a storyteller.”

—Sue Sorensen, author, editor, and Associate Professor of English at Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, MB.

Dianne Pearce

“If you enjoyed Mitch’s contribution, “Angel Delorme and the Craigflower Bus” in the Hawkshaw Press anthology, HARD-BOILED AND LOADED WITH SIN, then you’re going to love THIS book!”

—Dianne Pearce, MA, MFA, Publisher-Editor, Montclair, CA

Former South East Manitoba Residents

“You’ve created such a feel for that town (whether one has lived there or not), for the kinds of characters who live in these places. For me, personally, some of the events are deeply resonant. You’ve caught them well. The things young boys do, the way they think. You’ve caught it.”

—Anonymous Victoria Reader

[…] “I just had to write this instant cuz I just finished reading Willa Hund from your book. . . So funny and heartbreaking and alive!! I’m reading the whole book but that’s the one I just read now. . . ”

—Anonymous Toronto Reader

”IT’S ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS!”

—Anonymous Toronto Reader’s Mom

“Even before I started with the stories, I read the “Wuatsiel…Glossary” at the back of your book. That itself is worth the price of the book.  I was surprised how many of the words I knew by simply pronouncing them phonetically. Some things did survive my childhood. . .”

—Reader Eric Peters

“My favourite word: ‘rutsch‘ (p. 52). I know very little Low German, but that word was INSTANTLY recognizable . . . My favourite phrase (p. 140): ‘their visions so sympathetic, symphonic and kind.’ . . . such literary creativity (including some alliteration) and emotional openness and depth . . . My favourite paragraph (the final paragraph on p. 149): ‘I stood at the table, facing her. She tucked the phone under her chin and after listening for a few seconds gave me a comically enthusiastic two-thumbs-up salute and a smile as bright as a silver dollar. In that instant, looking at my mother’s often severe countenance and her small angular body, I felt safe and secure in her presence—no matter what threat might come. I saw her bravery and the utter dedication to her family, regardless of how she managed it and what people might think.'”

—Reader Gerald Loewen

Purchase from: At Bay Press McNally Robinson Booksellers Mennonite Heritage Village Museum Mennonite Heritage Museum CommonWord Misty River Books and every online seller from here to the banks of the Bazavluk and back.

“Pinching Zwieback:” Book, Author, Publication Details

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Last UPDATE: Nov 4, 2023

Barn: Guide Meridian, Lynden, Wa.—mjt

Author Mitchell Toews

After eight years in creative writing, 120 prose pieces placed in periodicals and anthologies (and over 650 rejections 😊) Mitch is launching his first book, a collection of short fiction published by At Bay Press of Winnipeg.

So who is this guy, Mitchell Toews?

Mitchell James Toews is the great-great-grandson of Mennonite Delegate C.P. Toews from Molotschna, Russia; the grandson of C.F. (“Roy,” “Schusta”) and Rosa Toews of Steinbach; grandson also to former “Jantsieda” (residents from the “other side” of the Red River) Diedrich and Marie Harder of Steinbach; and son of the Steinbach Bakery family: Norman “Chuck” and Jessie Toews. He is married to Janice Kasper of Steinbach and they have two married daughters.

Among his stop-overs and occupations: a year (1973/74) at UVIC in Victoria, two years at U of W in Winnipeg and (much later) a Master’s Certificate in Marketing Communication from York U. Mitch founded—with his father and uncle Earl Taves—and operated a small overhead door manufacturing company. In 1996, the now solely-owned business, Hanover Doors, was sold by Janice and Mitch and Mitch’s advertising and marketing career began. In 2016 after time well-spent with companies like Smith, Neufeld, Jodoin Law (Steinbach), Loewen Windows (Steinbach), Yarrow Sash & Door (Winnipeg), and Lynden Door (Abbotsford), Mitch devoted himself entirely to creative writing—a lifelong and much-delayed passion.

Janice and Mitch live in their 1950 lakeside cabin at Jessica Lake in the Manitoba territory that is part of Treaty 1 & 3 land and home to the Métis Nation, just north of the Fiftieth Parallel in the Winnipeg River basin. Their daughters Megan and Tere live in British Columbia and trips to see the families, particularly grandkids Ty, Hazel, James, and Floyd are as frequent as circumstances permit.

Mitch is an avid windsurfer, rower, and cross-country skier and the lifelong rigours of climbing ladders and swinging hammers, along with baseball, volleyball, basketball, and golf all contributed in past days to the current sorry state of his joints.

Book Synopsis

Pinching Zwieback comprises stories that recount events and conflicts from the “Mennosphere”—inwardly oriented communities that can generate wonderful characters and practical, often beautiful, solutions to life’s confusion. Other times, a solution may be elusive.

Hartplatz is the imaginary home for many of the recurrent characters. (Also Winkler, Aldergrove or fictive places like them—a small town pastiche.) These are rural Canadian junctures where vectors intersect: faith and doubt; pacifism in a world at war; honour and temptation; fervour and absurdity; the temptations of the wide welt, and of course, humour. Often gritty, it’s K-mart fiction or maybe better yet: schmaundtfat fiction. (A Low German glossary is provided!)

“God causes it to rain on Chevs and Fords alike,” as Diedrich, the main character in three* of the 20 stories puts it. It’s in this context that the characters resist, pitting their will against that of their foe—the foe they seek to love.

*Other main characters include Matt Zehen, his mother and father, Hart and Justy Zehen, Matt’s grandmother Rosa, and Matt’s close friend, Lenny Gerbrandt. A family tree provides a guide to the cast for readers.

Where to Purchase Pinching Zwieback

“Pinching Zwieback: Made-up Stories from the Darp” 2023 ISBN 9781998779055 by Mitchell Toews (At Bay Press, Wpg). Publication Date October 24, Release Date November 7, Launch Date Nov 8. Contact us for assistance: check with Mitch or Matt on where to buy and also about how to receive signed copies or for information concerning special situations, author appearances, writing workshops, and more.

Requesting “Pinching Zwieback” by Mitchell Toews (At Bay Press, Wpg) at your favourite bookstore or library will get you a copy. Coming soon to libraries in Kenora, ON and Manitoba locations in Brandon, Lac du Bonnet, Pinawa, Altona, Winkler, and Morden. More to follow.

“Pinching Zwieback” 5″X8″257-page quality paperbacks may be purchased:

From At Bay Press: “Individual orders are placed through our website by adding books to your cart and then checking out with our secure online payment. Orders may also be placed over the phone by calling 204-489-6658 and payment will be taken over the phone. You may send an email with any questions or concerns to atbaypress@gmail.com.”

McNally Robinson Booksellers (Pre-order available) all locations.

The gift shops at both Mennonite Heritage Village (Steinbach) and Mennonite Heritage Museum (Abbotsford).

CommonWord Bookstore and Resource Centre in Winnipeg, MB

Misty River Books in Terrace, BC

Manitoba Made Events & Shop in Lac du Bonnet, MB

Shop in person: Canadian Bookstore Map

Virtually all ONLINE book sources WORLDWIDE including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Thriftbooks, etc.

Libraries and booksellers in Canada and the U.S. may purchase books from At Bay Press’s distribution partners:

Canada: http://www.litdistco.ca/
U.S.: https://www.casemateipm.com/9781998779055/pinching-zwieback/
Aus/NZ: https://peribo.com.au/

For other countries: Please see https://atbaypress.com/ordering or contact Matt Joudrey atbaypress@gmail.com

Events

https://mitchellaneous.com/2023/10/20/pinching-zwieback-events/

Coming Soon

A first REVIEW of “Pinching Zwieback” by the eminent Canadian author, Poet Laureate, and literary leader, Linda Rogers van Krugel of Victoria will be placed shortly. Several other reviews, from Canada and the U.S., are underway.

Early Praise

“Pinching Zwieback Observations” from Canadian literary notables Zilla Jones, Ralph Friesen, Alanna Rusnack, Armin Wiebe and more.

Follow Mitch & Pinching Zwieback

Follow Mitch’s FaceBook page and this blog (Mitchellaneous.com) for unboring updates, news, and other crumbs and chicken feed as “Pinching Zwieback” struts in wider and wider circles around the coop.

A Toews Prose Sampler

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

From the sleepy stubble fields of Manitoba Mennonite country to the shores of the Rivanna River in Charlottesville, Virginia, here are four not-so-sleepy short stories. Besides my stories, the contents of The Rivanna Review are alive with unique literature, pictures, and book reviews. See the contents, here: https://rivannareview.com/

Single copies and subscriptions are extremely reasonable in price!

These four pieces are original works of mine, examples of “the organic story,” according to Print Editor Robert Boucheron. These stories are not in the forthcoming collection, “Pinching Zwieback” from At Bay Press (October 24), so no overlap!

Sweet Caporal: Life presents many unexpected dramas, especially for teenagers.

Hundred Miles an Hour: Set in the same lakeside location as Sweet Caporal; home to a darker drama.

The Sewing Machine: 1931 Winnipeg is the backdrop for unlikely combatants.

The Seven Songs: Pride, desperation, and deception know no one locale, no religious or national boundaries, and no exceptions.

Reprised: “The Spring Kid” —Macrina Magazine

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

https://macrinamagazine.com/general-submissions/guest/2022/09/10/the-spring-kid/

One of my favourite stories as it appears in

PLEASE NOTE: “The future of Macrina depends on whether we can establish a base of monetary support and grow our editorial and administrative team. Until then, our website will remain active, so you can read and share what we have already published.”

—The Associate Editors of Macrina Magazine

As the above indicates, it’s been a tough spring for this exceptional publication. If you can help out in any way, please contact Editor-in-Chief Micah Enns Dyck. https://www.facebook.com/MacrinaMagazine

All Our Swains Commend Her

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Can’t wait to roll into Van with a couple of grandkids in tow to read at this event! Family day!

I’ll be reading excerpts from my 2nd Runner-up entry in this year’s PULP Literature Raven Short Story contest.

The Sewing Machine: The organic truth behind the fiction

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

A story of mine, “The Sewing Machine,” appears in the current edition of Rivanna Review. Speaking as a longtime subscriber to literary journals, I can say that RR is one of my favourites. The Editor in Chief and Publisher Robert Boucheron is an intelligent and thoughtful person—just the kind required to start up a lit journal in Charlottesville, VA after a long and distinguished career in architecture.

I am not an architect, nor do I know many of them—George Costanza of Seinfeld fame does not count—but for 16 years, they often held my fate in their hands. I owned a small manufacturing company and we did work on large commercial buildings. I found project architects to be direct, firm, and of the no-bullshit variety. Traits not uncommon in the building trade, but a regular characteristic for architects whose measure of approval is finite to two decimal points. You meet the spec or you don’t…

“The Sewing Machine” is a character study involving a man and a woman in 1931 Winnipeg who resemble my Toews Grandparents in many respects. Robert has commented that the type of writing he often finds favour with is what he calls “organic” storytelling. By this, I think he means stories that are “of the people, by the people, and for the people” to paraphrase some of Robert’s Virginia cohorts from the past.

These “organic stories” come from “the truth behind the fiction” as another friend, At Bay Press publisher, editor and author, Matt Joudrey has said. Matt’s acute observation connects to what friend and reader Edward Krahn sometimes compares to the Richard Ford school of gritty characters and circumstances. (So, I’m a purveyor of Menno Grit?)

Here are some more defining characteristics from an experienced writer-editor:

“A unique writers voice is what attracts me at first. Popular, stylistic, poetry/prose rarely captures my attention. Sometimes writing is over-learned in classes, or representative of the teacher’s or studied subject’s body of work. I like the rawness of the pure untarnished colloquial voice in the reading. Having something to say is essential to me. I’m not impressed with a great volume of rarely used words thrown together to impress the reader with the vast knowledge of the writer on command of English, tricks of writing, ancient history, or the places they’ve travelled.”

—An excerpt from an interview by writer, editor, publisher Judith Lawrence in, “Six Questions For…”

My forthcoming collection of short stories is a qualifier for these definitions. In “Pinching Zwieback: Made-up stories from the Darp” (At Bay Press) I’ll present a series of 20 stories. The pieces range from the opener, an 1873 story that takes place literally in the Bazavluk River in what is now Ukraine to a present-day ball game at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver. In between, there are tales from Hartplatz, MB (a place that bears a resemblance, some might say, to a Darp with the initials Steinbach). A fictional clan called the Zehen family often takes centre stage, along with a hard-nosed friend, Lenny Gerbrandt, and the earnest and determined Jantseider Diedrich Deutsch.

While “The Sewing Machine” does not appear in “Pinching Zwieback” it is similar to many of the stories in the collection. To grab a subscription to Robert Boucheron’s entertaining and eclectic print periodical (fiction, non-fiction, reviews and poetry), Rivanna Review, visit the journal’s site at https://rivannareview.com/ While there, you can also learn how to connect to Robert’s monthly television broadcast.

Just tell him Art Vandelay sent you!

Issue 1: “Sweet Caporal” by Mitchell Toews

Issue 3: “Hundred Miles an Hour” by Mitchell Toews

Issue 6: “The Sewing Machine” by Mitchell Toews

Editing

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Editing is difficult but rewarding.

Difficult because you are erasing what you have created. You are subtracting from or changing the very thing that got you in the publishing game! Feels risky.

Rewarding because your changes create something new, all over again. Plus, the editor is your ally and a trusted source that comes to you from a place other than the rocky mass between your (my) ears. Thank God for that.

I am preparing 24 stories for publication in the spring. Several folks are weighing in on my work and each day there’s a knot in my shoulders and that night’s dreams are peppered with flickering replays of scenes from the collection. I wake up, make notes, fall back asleep and then laugh at my scribbled nonsense in the morning.

Here is a segment, edited recently. I offer it as a fast in situ peek at the crime scene. It is from the story, “The Peacemongers” and the topic is Canadian Mennonites during the wars, WW2 in this case, who deigned to be officially named “Conscientious Objectors.” This meant they would work in labour camps in Canada rather than serving in the military.

I thought of Corky’s uncle John who worked at Loeb’s lumberyard. He wore a red vest and a plaid shirt and stood behind the counter at the lumber desk. He was a big man with very white teeth and he would stand there smiling and writing down what you wanted to buy. My dad would always order lumber from him and it always started out the same way. Dad would say, “I need some two-by-fours,” and John would say, “how many and how long do you need ’em?” Dad would reply “twenty pieces and forever!” Same joke every time. Then John would yell for one of the yard boys to come and load the order into our truck, his pencil poised above the order form, looking at my dad over his glasses. “Twelve-footers,” or whatever length he needed, was the answer, served with a slanted smile.

‘

Dad said John had been in a C.O. camp during the war. He told my dad stories about it and how he made lifelong friends there. “Some were in the camp for other reasons, but most were there to follow the Word. That meant something to us and it was like our battle, to stay true to what we had been taught and to what we would teach our children.” I heard him talk about this to my dad and other men at the lumberyard. He stood straight up and looked into the eyes of the person he to spoke to. His voice was firm and he was not trying to convince anyone—he was just telling it. I was too young to understand everything, but thought he was telling the truth, exactly as he knew it and believed it.

.

I sometimes felt as though John and many others like him in our town believed, maybe secretly, that God was the biggest, toughest, most bad-ass Mennonite of them all. As if God would do all the fighting for us, and He would take no prisoners. I’m not sure that made our desire to live a life of pacifism any better. Possibly worse. It made God seem to me like a kind of bully—forever smiting Old Testament armies and kings that He didn’t like and constantly fighting with the Devil. Like Archie and Don, who fought almost every day after school at the corner of Hannover and Kroeker, accomplishing nothing but scuffed chins and bloody knuckles.[MT1]

 [MT1] Added 22-09-10 in a moment of random inspiration.

—Considered but not promised, for “Pinching Zwieback” At Bay Press

A Collection of Short Stories

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Here it is… the announcement I’ve been waiting to make public since my story in grade four at Southwood School in Steinbach made it onto the classroom bulletin board.

Bigger me, bigger bulletin board.

Cheers, respectively, to teacher Miss Hildebrand and publisher Matt Joudrey.

“Pinching Zwieback” is a themed fictional account of the lives and characters in a place on the Canadian prairies called Hartplatz. It features the Zehen family and many others whose comings and goings represent events both real and imagined under the Prussian blue sky. Among them: Hart & Justy, Schmietum Jake, Pete Vogel, and Matt Zehen, whose journey is observed from childhood to later in life. Characters that really schmack!

More info as we get closer to the spring 2023 launch. Watch this space and my Facebook and Twitter pages. (LinkedIn too.)

two flash collections to love

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Here are two flash fiction collections to love:

“Small Shifts” edited by Shawn L. Bird (Lintusen Press) https://lnkd.in/gRNdw659 and “This Will Only Take a Minute — 100 Canadian Flashes” edited by Bruce Meyers and Michael Mirolla (Guernica Editions) https://lnkd.in/gp6fJVcE

Many exceptional writers with some of their best stories in two books packed tight with wisdom, pathos, and humour. Plus, the boring bits have been removed. (As flash lovers already know, this is what generally happens.)

#flashfiction