Mitchell Toews's Blog, page 14

Prosetry in the Park

Janice and I live in a 1950 cottage on the shore of a lake in the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba.

We try to live simply out here in the boreal–WiFi and Polish beer notwithstanding–but even the residents of Walden Pond gave in to the occasional venture back to the city for supplies and human contact. Us too.

On July 20 we will try to bring the city to the Park. We hope to be swamped by forest-thirsty urbanites, neighbours, and friendly randos here at our Walden. We will welcome these visitors to be our guests and, if they can, to bring a story, a poem, a song, a painting and share it with the gathering.

A night under the stars. Informal artistic expression and relective appreciation. Come by boat, windsurfer, canoe. Swim, hike in, ride a bike or fill a vehicle–float plane, micro bus, Red River cart, or a 1947 Lincoln Zephyr. . . whatevs–with your most convivial merry prankster friends.

[…] “twas in another lifetime,

one of toil and blood.

When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud.

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.

‘Come in,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you shelter from the storm.'”

~~~

Let us, like Bob Dylan’s friend in his mystic lyric above, offer you an evening of shelter from the storm.

AND, if you can’t make it in person, we’d welcome your proxy–a snippet or an excerpt or a few lines of verse. We’ll present your work with reverence and hope. Then we’ll toast you and hope once more—that you join us next year.

Contact me here or on Facebook, twitter, email, Goodreads, phone, or drop in for details. mtoews55@gmail.com to learn about the point in time and space where reality meets infinity, borne on blintering starlight at the 50th latitude.

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What’s it all about, Alfie?

An outdated song-movie reference, but truly, what IS it all about?

Followers. Friends. Connections.

I have them, I enjoy many… some not so much. I’ve made enjoyable friends via twitter and Facebook. It is a time-consumer, the internet is, that’s for sure but I’ll gladly put in the time if there is a pay-off.

And if the pay-off is simply getting to know a few more cool people on the planet? I’m in.

But…

What do the figures mean? What is helpful to a writer? What does an editor or a literary agent or a publisher really care about beyond the story?

Build your base, countless consultants with extremely white teeth and button-down collars proclaim.

I’d be glad to know about the Malcolm points that magically tip things in my favour and take my story from “promising” to “compelling” or from “not a good fit for us right now” to “we are goddamn-freaking-mind-blown to have you on board, you massive rock star in a blue plaid shirt!” Or words to that effect.

At the same time, I have my own disclaimers. I care about working with people who like me and whom I enjoy — I feel like I’ve earned that privilege and so my journey up & down the rocky, steep, and sometimes treacherous fiction trail is among friends and pleasant, fun people. Sure, they’re skilled and sharp and they gotta be smart. Hard-working and honest; of course, but they also must be just plain old nice. Share a deserted island with nice. Two-hole outhouse nice. (Okay — no one is that nice.)

Anyway, please tell me… what’s it all about?

Twitter = 4,484 followers @Mitchell_Toews (See my mapped follower results in the image above.)
Facebook = 234 friends https://www.facebook.com/mitch.toews
LinkedIn = 785 connections https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchtoews/
Goodreads = 7 followers and 165 friends https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18450919.Mitchell_Toews
Mitchellaneous.com blog = 148 subscribers https://mitchellaneous.com/


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Reading

Manitoba writer Mitchell Toews will be among those doing readings of flash fiction & excerpts from longer work at ArtSpace May 25 Noon-2 PM on the fifth floor (up on the roof, weather permitting).

It’s part of the Doors Open event and he has volunteered on behalf of the Manitoba Writers’ Guild 425-100 Arthur Street, Wpg.

Each building tour, on the half-hour, will stop for a brief reading: Seven-minute excursions into the boreal, the dim light, to the bottom of the sky, and to the sticking spot, all for free in the 119-year-old Gault Building, now home to ARTSPACE.

Readings may include selections from:

“I am Otter”
“Sweet Caporals at Dawn”
“A Plum of a Night” (for groups with lots of little kids)
“Operation Night Bandit” (for groups with lots of exhausted young moms)
“Pinching Zwieback”
“In the Dim Light Beyond the Fence” (for groups with more than one Blue Jays cap in evidence)
The opening sequence of  “The Mismaloya”, Part Two in a trilogy.

“I try to write about everyday people and events, but to see the drama in these lives. Regardless of whether the story takes a turn towards humour, or sorrow, or action, or even fantasy, I often come at it from an underlying perspective of hope, often with a good dose of emotion and courage in the mix.”—Mitchell Toews

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Happy Mother’s Day Bio

Just sent this bio out. It’s of the long-form variety and I have shorter ones (much) that I use most often. I thought it was kinda fun and less inhibited than some I’ve tried in the past. You tell me?

Bio

After university in Victoria, B.C. and Winnipeg, MB, where Mitchell chose not to take his dad’s advice and follow his creative inclinations, he jumped into adult life. Married at 21, a couple of kids soon after, the couple opened a manufacturing company and commenced to work like hell. After 16 years of busted knuckles, lit & fig, Mitchell and Janice sold their company and he went to work for other hewers and makers of wood products in Canada. Mitch became “the creative guy” for a couple of large manufacturers, working on advertising and marketing communication. He added a degree in marcom to his education and worked in this stream of the creative economy until 2015 when he retired. (It was as soon as they dared!)

Now, Janice and he find themselves living a simple life in their 1950 lakeside cabin in Manitoba. Cold as blue steel in the winter and summers are kinda buggy but they have no real complaints—they left those behind—and they drink drunkenly of nature every day. The only blackfly in the boreal ointment is that they are half a continent removed from their grandkids. “That sucks but whatchergonnado?”

Mitchell’s daily beat, when not fixing or renovating the old girl—their cabin, that is—is to write short fiction and submit to lit mags in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. He has over fifty stories published, a short list of anthology contributions, and one Pushcart Prize nomination. Please see the author’s blog for the full catalogue. https://mitchellaneous.com/write-clicks/

In print, Mitch has made contributions to these available-to-purchase titles: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18450919.Mitchell_Toews Two more are underway but are not yet published.

Mitchell has also written:

a sci-fi-fantasy novella about an insidious mutant swarm of giant kakkerlaks and a group of stranded teenagers. It awaits the TLC that will allow it to seek self-actualization in the outside world of readers and reviewers.

A short story trilogy set on the Mexican Pacific coast for which he maintains a bothersome notion that someone could adapt it into a great screenplay; and,

a noir debut literary novel that is in its first full edit. He is about a year-and-a-half into it. Mitch has connected with a Brit editor to help get this WIP tale of Mennonite mayhem set in the wilds of Manitoba to the query stage.

Mitchell was recently accepted as a “New/Early Career Artist” by the Canada Council for the Arts and this allows him to apply for funding to help finance his second act. He is actively considering opportunities for grant application.

#

Last, FYI, here is an unsolicited list of the folks I’d most like to share a beer with, around the campfire here at Jessica Lake:

First, in recognition of Mother’s Day, my great-grandma Sarah Toews who, in 1917 (!) sued her Mennonite Church (run entirely by men) for shunning her. Next, novelist Phillip Roth who first made it “normal” to insert lots of Yiddish into his books and opened up a rich and fascinating way of incorporating culture and setting. I try to follow his lead. In my case, it’s Low German or *Plautdietsch*. One of my true author heroes, Miriam Toews, would also get an invite. She comes from the same little town as me and she, a bit like Roth, opened things up in the conservative Mennonite community for writers to dissent. She followed the lead of a renowned writer named Rudy Wiebe, who would also have a lawn chair at the fire. CNF novelist, journalist, speaker, socialist and all-around shit-disturber Chris Hedges would be asked to keep things lively—him with a Doctor of Divinity and a Pulitzer and all. Finally, Moonlight Graham, from W.P. Kinsella’s “Shoeless Joe”, because I love baseball and he seems like a pretty good guy.

P.S. – the Mother’s Day tag would come out under normal, non-Mother’s Day situations.

Otter Redux

My short and furry flash fiction, “I am Otter” is up on the new site: Short Tales – Flash Fiction Stories. The online site, which is aimed at international readers, features stories of no more than 1500 words. https://tale.code.blog/ Editor: @samkandej

I am Otter was first published by The Machinery in August 2017.

Mitchell lives and writes lakeside in Manitoba. He enjoys those splendid opportunities to fire in a one-hopper from deep in fiction’s left field, where ideas go to get green-stained and bedevilled.

 

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Protected: DRAFT: Dog in a Bag

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

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“Died Rich” Coming to Fabula Argentea

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

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

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

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

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

allfornow,

Mitchell

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

 

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The Peacemongers

Have you, as a child or in your youth or adulthood, asked yourself the question, “Would I go to war?”

The Baby Boomer generation in Canada has walked between the raindrops when it comes to war. Prior generations—in particular—and those who followed have fought for their country. In fact, WW2 Lee-Enfields are proudly slung on the branches of my own Manitoba family tree.

Part of a unique cohort, many Canadian Mennonites of military age during the war years were subject to the rigours of the Conscientious Objector process. For Mennonite children who watched John Wayne on Saturday and shared faspa with former CO relatives on Sunday, this was a confusing set of “truths” to discern. A moral minefield. Throw in our German language, a biased and reluctant postponements Judge, and more recent revelations concerning the relationship between Nazism and Mennonites for a virtual singularity of perplexity.

Did Canada’s initial mandate on September 10, 1939—to help defend the British Isles and Hong Kong—give permission for an individual committed to peace to abrogate their personal vows? To set aside their faith? If so, was there reason enough to make a case to Dee Oola at the pearly gates? Enough to quell a wretched conscience?

Or, on the other hand, was it right to act in utter defiance and effectively abandon the country that took them in and saved them or their family members from violence, and in many cases, military conscription elsewhere? Did Mennonites hide behind their promised freedom from conscription in the face of a world crisis of evil?

How could a twenty-something boy from the farm or a village on the prairies, likely without reliable access to world news, make these choices?

I’m sure of only one thing: I’m relieved and fortunate that I did not have to make the choice to fight or refuse. Or to flee. Nor have my children, nor—I hope—will my grandchildren be forced to bear arms or decide between equally unbearable acts.

#

I took a look at this through the lens of fiction in my story, “The Peacemongers”, published in The MOON Magazine, June 2017. My short story appeared in the “Swords into plowshares: Transitioning to a world without war,” issue.

I’m pleased to announce that Publisher/Editor Leslee Goodman has chosen, “The Peacemongers” to be included in an upcoming anthology from The MOON Magazine titled “Out of this World: The Best Short Stories from The MOON, Volume 1”.

I’ll provide more information on this publication here and on Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter, once details and availability are determined.

My thanks and appreciation to Ms. Goodman for all she does and for giving my words a small part in it!

The MOON magazine

Support intimate storytelling for as little as $5/month: https://www.patreon.com/LesleeGoodman

The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine by Mitchell Toews

A 1934 rerun, in a way, kinda like a print version of Turner Classic Movies. “The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine”. See it here, along with an entertaining recommendation from author Leila Allison, a frequent contributor to Literally Stories and many other lit mags:

http://bit.ly/Allison_FiftyDollar_LS_Rerun

literally stories

My Grandma often told us about an adventure that she and Grandpa had in Winnipeg soon after my dad was born.

View original post 2,511 more words

See Change

“Can a sixty-three-year-old aufjefollna Mennonite living next to a lake in the boreal be part of change in the worldwide artistic landscape?”

Sure. In a small way, why the Mitchell not?

I’m quite sure some of the change champions featured in this article would agree:

12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists

http://time.com/longform/art-leaders-next-generation/

I found this piece inspiring, even for a schnuddanäse like me.

I’m four years into a smashmouth experiment — my longtime dream to write fiction. To be published and to leave something good behind. To ask some interesting questions. All that stuff that sounds like a lot of fluff and horseshit, but is in fact, as tough it comes.

Chris Jackson
Publisher and editor in chief of One World, a Penguin Random House imprint

“But his goal is not to acquire any book by a writer from a marginalized background for diversity’s sake alone. ‘The idea that the imprint is committed to diversity is kind of absurd,’ Jackson says. ‘We want to reflect the world we live in.’ The imprint allows writers to tell subversive stories in an authentic way, without what he calls ‘white filtering,’ or couching stories in ways that feel comfortable or familiar to white readers.”

This is a helpful communication for me.

I am a grizzled old white guy, writing about real life in small towns, times bygone and present day, the northern forest, basketball and baseball, bruised knuckles, and Mennonite themes. While I personally have not benefitted directly from the near past’s traditional preponderance of white men in literary fiction, I undoubtedly benefitted in many ways in other parts of my life in Canadian and American society. I have a legacy of privilege. So, I don’t feel I can or should complain—at all—about other cohorts like minorities or women who, these days, might get a small advantage for not being a white guy.

Jackson’s clear call to, “…reflect the world we live in,” explains what has been a difficult and highly coded part of lit fic for me. I take this editor’s message to mean that I am not to be excluded, I just have to share. Proportionately, or even a little less, and accept the new status quo with some grace.

I believe I can do that, in fact, that’s just what I want to do. Thank you, Chris Jackson.

I also find clarity in his comment about “white filtering”. I know this too well. While I don’t “white filter”, per se, I sure as H-E-double-hockey-sticks know how to structure a story to appeal to conservatives, especially my Mennonite brethren. I also know how to pimp up a story to fit more liberal (my own true bearing) perspectives. Horses for courses, but not for literary honesty.

To engage in this posturing is specious at worst, unnecessary at best. My charge as an artist is to invest my work with honesty and courage, not to try to predict the audience reaction and pander my story. No filtering, of any colour or creed.

Sounds easy, but it ain’t. We writers want to be liked. But, again, Mr. Jackson’s leadership is helpful to me. Maybe I’ll be liked as one of the new age of subversive Mennonite authors writing, “in an authentic way” and without parsing readers by pew, rank, and political or social geist.

* * *

I hope you enjoy the article, I sure as hell did!

 

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