Mitchell Toews

Does the gravel road remember? the border of pastel yarrow, my footprints and the hollows made by my knees and the heels of my hands, me concentrating on staying awake, poplars and ravens watch over me Does the sky remember? glaring down on the old drunk, in his yellowed Stanfields, lying in a soaking puddle in the backyard morning, sprinkler ran all night and he drowned but didn’t know…

I have good news. “Fetch,“ a short story I submitted to THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA was chosen from a pool of over 800 contestants as a finalist in their 2021 Emerging Writer Short Prose Contest. Phew! Feels good to say it. This was my year to enter contests and I was getting a bit (okay, a lot) pouty faced about it. It’s not the not winning that is so bad (I’m lying, that is bad) it’s more the…

Treasures small and LARGE

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 I 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,…

What All I Don’t know

“What all I don’t know,” is a kind of Steinbach* way of describing all that I’ve not yet experienced or learned. My what all deficit is big. This is true even though I’ve experienced a lot. (I’m kind of old and a high-miler in some ways.) Anyway, what all I don’t know is a lot. How big “a lot” is, I don’t know because, well, I don’t know what all I don’t know. Who does know what all I don’t…

Last May (2020) I wrote this, a bit of snide comedy in response to The Mango Schiet Stain’s openly racist comments at the time. Now, a year later, we see the horrible, tragic aftermath as his repugnant legacy of racist violence lives on. And grows. I hope we speak out against would-be Canadian copycats who mimic these core hatreds, endorsed by American conservative leadership, and by extension,…

Novel Thoughts — Audience

As my debut novel nears completion I am working on understanding the basics of the business side of writing. The book will become one of millions of items competing for audience share. Who will my book appeal to? Why? How can I reach them to let them know what I have written? How will I stand out from the massive crowd of competing works that vie for those same consumers of literature? What’s in…

Basic Income Artists’ Commission

I was approached by an organization tasked to investigate Basic Income in Canada, with special attention to those of us in the Arts. They created a commission and invited artists from around the country to offer opinion and comment on the concept of Basic Income and how, specifically, it might affect the lives of artists. I was invited to provide an Artist’s Testimonial and here is what I…

Received great news from the ripping UK online lit mag, Literally Stories. They have chosen my story, “So Are They All” for a rerun on February 14, 2021. In my travels around the virtual literary world these last six years, I’ve been able to meet a lot of special people. The crew at Literally Stories is just such a romp, such a cabal, such a band on the run. FUN FACT: The plural noun for a…

A Mennonite Imposter’s Discursive Rhapsody

Okay, it’s a great title. I’ll say that. However, this popular post — and by popular, I mean 28 reads, so you know, not exactly biblical circulation — was looking a little raggedy. I took it down, feeling like it was kind of too scattershot, even for me, and likely was in need of a vitriol change. So stand back and stand by… OOPS! I mean, well, I don’t mean THAT, I mean hold on and let me get…

Detailed C-V November 2020

MITCHELL TOEWS: A big list…

 ONLINE ADDRESSES Mitchellaneous.com @Mitchell_Toews Author pages on Facebook, Goodreads, and LinkedIn

 CURRICULUM-VITAE

Updated 11.11.20

EDUCATION

University of Victoria (one year) University of Winnipeg (1974-77) Masters Certificate in Marketing Communication Management, York University (2001) “So You Want To Write Indigenous Characters…”, Manitoba Writers’…

Piece of My Heart

I had the opportunity to read one of my flash fictions for the virtual launch of Issue 28 of PULP Literature Magazine. The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIcbCsZCMpk&feature=youtu.be and my segment is the first one, running from about the 2:00 minute mark to 9:30.

PULP Litis a special lit mag. It is, like my kids and grandkids, located in B.C. and also like my kids and…

As this rabid cannibal of a year winds down, I wondered 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 non-baby-powder tinged, little league coaching, proud dad/granddad redheaded…

“The Sunshine Girl”

Here’s a link to a new online communication tool I am testing. It’s a 90-second animation that offers a summary for a newly-published short story and a link to the publication where the piece can be read.

It’s the FREE version and it’s new, so… It seems to work well on laptops but might get a little grouchy on your android phone. Check it and see.

Let me know and, by all means, take a look…

Sitting and drinking coffee just after sunrise. I’m watching a kingfisher in the branches above the shallow water near the shore. Mary Lou Driedger’s thoughtful observations of Sarah Klassen’s new book of poetry–many of the poet’s verses a loving look at the natural world–make the perfect complement to my morning and add another book to my buy list.

The Tree of Life (Turnstone Press)