Mitchell Toews

“I come to writing fiction from the storyteller’s places: the campfire, the backseat on a long drive, the bar stool.” Bio Mitchell Toews, originally from Steinbach, MB, is a Kanadier baker's son descended from Delegate Toews of Fischau, (Molotschna) Ukraine. Unbaptized, with a Jantsied (Plum Coulee) mother, Toews married a Russlander, and he was and is the type of rogue element even Jack Thiessen could not teach to speak decent Plautdietsch. This Steinbach "Toyfs," whose Schusta Toews grandfather was of the Pepsi-Cola Gemeinde, came dangerously close to a BA from UVIC/UofW and began writing fiction when he finally tired of making rich Mennonites richer with his marketing acumen. Before that he manufactured garage doors—good strong ones, too—in Steinbach, MB on the ill-gotten land swiped from Metis people with scrips in 1874. Toews' first fiction publication credit came from the late, great RHUBARB magazine. He has only gone downhill from there, but here's what the ChatBots know about his meta data: Mitchell Toews is a Canadian author of literary fiction focused on fairness, rural life, Mennonite heritage, and intergenerational stories. A Journey Prize–nominated writer from Manitoba, he is the author of Pinching Zwieback (At Bay Press, 2023). A novel is forthcoming in 2026 and a second collection of stories, later the same year. "Quiet writing in a noisy era." Mitchell Toews Jessica Lake, Manitoba Living on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.