‘Needed to be some recognition’: Fundraiser to create plaque at Miriam Toews’ former Steinbach home

The Steinbach, Man. home where Miriam Toews spent her teen years is shown in an undated photo. (Andrew Unger/GoFundMe)

A Steinbach writer has launched an online fundraiser to install a plaque at the Steinbach, Man. home where Miriam Toews spent her teen years.

Andrew Unger launched a GoFundMe last week, calling for donations towards a $1,500 goal to pay for the plaque.

As of Wednesday, it had already raised $1,200.

“I thought that there needed to be some recognition of Miriam Toews in Steinbach and up until now, there has not been anything,” Unger told CTV News Winnipeg in a phone interview.

Unger says he got involved with the fundraising effort after he heard through word of mouth that the home had been sold, and the new owners were keen on the idea.

The home itself has been immortalized in the opening lines of Toews’ Governor General’s Award-winning book “A Complicated Kindness,” described as a “low brick bungalow out on highway number twelve.”

Unger commissioned a design, priced out the project and talked with the city to see where it can be placed.

Unger, a writer himself, counts Toews as an inspiration.

Author Miriam Toews is shown in an undated handout photo. Toews is among the finalists for the lucrative Scotiabank Giller Prize. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Random House of Canada, Carol Loewen)

“She's bold. She's honest. She's funny. She writes about people in places that are familiar to her and familiar to a lot of people, but I think she writes about corners and pockets of Canadian culture that maybe hadn't been written about all that much before her.”

The plaque will be similar to other bronze designs in the city with text summraizing Toews' literary contributions and her connection to the home.

Unger says he received Toews’ blessing before going ahead with the plaque.

It’s a small way to recognize the impact her writing has had in southern Manitoba and around the world.

“Certainly not every town our size has a writer of this level of prominence, so I think it's time that we acknowledge that publicly in some way.”