Mitchell Toews lives and works and vexes his grand-kids in the Cascadia region of the West Coast. His summers are spent at Jessica Lake in Manitoba in the windy intermingling between the top of the water and the bottom of the sky.

The stories posted here are both previously published (public) and also works in progress (private). Many of the WIP pieces have been submitted to journals and contests. Most are "gritty realism" style short stories about people from the imaginary Canadian prairie town of "Hartplatz". They are not fashion models or politicians or other high profile - high income types. They grind away at life and although they have the same anxieties and weaknesses as their higher payscale cousins, they have to get up and go to work; angst or not. Tough baguettes! 

You may also find a little satire; mostly over the top (meh) but the occasional less picante serving, just for balance.

CommuterLit.com has run three of Mitch's short fictions: "Encountered on the Shore", "A Vile Insinuation", and "Without Reason". Another of his stories, "Nothing to Lose" appeared on Fiction on the Web (UK) and, "A Fisherman's Story" was published in Rhubarb Magazine Issue 39. Literally Stories (UK) published Mitch's twisted yarn, "Breezy and the Six-Pack Sneaker".

"And So Are They All" won second place in the Fiction category in the 2016 "Write on the Lake" writing contest and will appear in the Lake Winnipeg Writers' Group's semi-annual journal, Voices, Volume 16, No. 2.

Tweets: @mitchell_toews