Historical Fiction by a Manitoba Raconteur
Work in Progress
Working Title: In the Shadow of the Steel Gang
Status: Editing and secondary revision
Genre: Historical Fiction, Canadiana
Word Count: 100K
Before social media was a thing, Saskatchewan experienced the worst highway accident in its history. On May 28, 1980, twenty-two young men lost their lives. They were part of the Prairie Region Steel Gang. I was there. This is a work of fiction, but based on the events of that summer, and the fallout.
PUBLISHED WORK
La Forêt Enchantée
This published work began as a personal keepsake for our family, sparked by a request from my grandchildren for handmade door signs—each one filled with its own delightful and highly specific details. From there, I began to wonder whether those signs, along with our summer life at the cottage, might be woven into a story of their own. What emerged was an enchanted forest tale shaped by family memories, a cottage mask the children renamed Ri-Ri Tou-Tou, a doodled birch ogre from the Covid years, our homemade stick-figure family portraits, and the many expressions and small moments that made the story uniquely theirs. Along the way, it also became a gentle story about emotions, kindness, and caring for one another.
Manitoba Heartbeat Blog
Winterpeg
“What to do? What to do?”
The damn General betrayed me. Left me out in the cold. Literally.
The General is what I call my old, trusted, and rusted 1973 ¾-ton Ford pickup truck with four-on-the-floor.
Correction… what I call my parents' vehicle that I commandeered for my own personal use.
About Denis Fortier
As a young kid, I was captivated by books and the stories within them. At school, sciences and math were my strengths, but creative writing classes always drew my interest. As I grew older, I dreamed of becoming a doctor, and when I was accepted into medical school at the age of nineteen, my passion for writing was pushed aside, buried under the heavy stacks of medical textbooks like Gray’s Anatomy.