Month: March 2026
My Left Thumb
by Michael Mirolla
It starts as a gentle weakness in my left thumb. Like a slight pinching that won’t allow me to use the full strength possible when matched to my right thumb. That prevents the thumb muscle from achieving its full potential. Nothing serious, mind you. Nothing visible when placing the two thumbs side by side. Nothing that I need to bring up to my family doctor on our rare Zoom meetings. (Not wanting to waste her time with trivialities when I know I an fortunate to even have a family doctor despite her office being several hundred kilometres away and thus awkward for face-to-face.) It does worry me, however, that nothing I do by way of exercise improves the strength of that thumb. And is it getting worse? Hard to tell. For some reason, my mind goes to the thought of the opposable thumb theory of human intelligence and ingenuity. And how now, when twisting off the top of a vacuum-sealed jam or olive jar, I can no longer make full use of one of my opposables – and need to switch to my right hand. Is this going to lead to a loss of a percentage of that intelligence or ingenuity? Well, I guess that would have had to depend on measuring the difference between pre- and post-left-thumb-weakness intelligence and ingenuity levels. I had never thought of doing that before my left thumb showed this weakness. Would have shown incredible foresight if I had done so. In any case and not crying over spilled milk (not that I would ever cry over milk as I don’t drink it), I am able to simulate that pinching and loss of strength by holding the base of my diminished thumb between right thumb and index and squeezing. Being somewhat still intelligent, I check to see what can cause thumb pain: trigger thumb, thumb arthritis, DeQuervain’s tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, skier’s thumb. None of these pains describe the weakness and pinching in my left thumb. Next, I check the muscles included in the thumb: abductor pollicis brevis, flexor pollicis brevis, opponens pollicis, adductor pollicis. This is all Greek to me. Perhaps my intelligence is already starting on that downward slippery slope. Tom Thumb, while interesting as the first fairy tale printed in English, doesn’t help all that much – especially the part where a cow swallows him and is then expunged via a cow pat! But I digress. Is that another symptom of diminishing intelligence? I fear it might be. Well, look on the bright side. Unlike many others, I can trace this lessening to a specific cause. Hopefully, I can hold onto that as I fade away.
Michael Mirolla has had the fortune of publishing more than two dozen novels, plays, film scripts and short story and poetry collections. These include award winners such as a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award, and three Bressani Prize winners: the novel Berlin; the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue; and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads. Michael is also a veteran writer-in-residence, including: a three-month residency at the Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver (fall 2019); Olot, Catalonia (September 2023); Barcelona (Can Serrat residency, July 2024); Regina Public Library Writer-in-Residence (Sept. 2024-June 2025); Virtual writer-in-residence (Saskatchewan Writers Guild, September-October 2025). A symposium on Michael’s writing was held on May 25, 2023. Born in Italy and raised in Montreal, Michael makes his home on a 30-acre farm (along with five dogs, a cat and sundry humans) outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “My Left Thumb”? I don’t know if any of it is surprising and/or fascinating in all truth. I was reaching for a bottle of my favorite wine one evening and felt a twinge in my left thumb. One of those things that happens when you over-extend, I thought. But no. The twinge persisted. I checked my right thumb and it was all good. No twinge. I waited several days to see if it was gone. It wasn’t. But it also hadn’t become worse. Low level twinge, in other words. That’s when the idea came to me to take advantage of this (something I’ve done quite often with other ailments and dreams as inspirations for my writing). In the hope something good comes out of something a little scary.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.
Upcoming
12/15 • Isabelle Ness
12/22 • Catherine Bai
12/29 • Stephan Viau
01/05 • Allison Blevins
01/12 • Justin Ocelot
01/19 • Yejun Chun
01/26 • Mathieu Parsy
02/02 • Robert McBrearty
02/09 • Sarah Daly
02/16 • Wayne Lee
02/23 • Terena Elizabeth Bell
03/02 • Michael Mirolla
03/09 • Nicholas Claro
03/16 • TBD
03/23 • TBD
03/30 • TBD