My recent book-buying binge has included a number of Mennonite authors. Aside from the Wes Funk books, which I ordered from Laird Books in Regina, Saskatchewan (and who provided excellent customer service), I acquired all of the Mennonite-related books from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.
Birdsell, Sandra. Agassiz: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1991.
I haven’t read much of Birdsell’s work though she was one of the influential Mennonite writers at the beginning of the “Mennonite miracle” in Canadian writing during the 1980s. I decided that this summer would be a good time to remedy this lack.
Funk, Wes. Cherry Blossoms. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2012.
—. Dead Rock Stars. Illus. Kevin Hastings. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2015.
—. Wes Side Story: A Memoir. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2014.
I recently heard about Funk’s work. It is apparently explicitly queer, which is exciting because queer Mennonite literature is a major research interest of mine. I bought copies of all of his books that I could find (there’s one more that I haven’t been able to find anywhere).
Janzen, Jean. Elements of Faithful Writing. Kitchener: Pandora, 2004.
As I mentioned in a recent post, I haven’t read much of Janzen’s work, but am trying to remedy that. This book is one that gets cited often in metacritical discussions of Mennonite literature, and thus feels essential for me to read.
Waltner-Toews, David. One Foot in Heaven. Regina: Couteau, 2005.
I love Waltner-Toews’s poetry and am excited to read some of his fiction.
Yaguchi, Yorifumi. The Wing-Beaten Air: My Life and My Writing. Intercourse: Good, 2008.
I also really enjoy Yaguchi’s poetry, and look forward to reading this memoir.
The “plus one” referred to in the title of this post is the new Modern Language Association style manual, which I received free because I am an MLA member:
MLA Handbook. 8th ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2016.
Once I get a chance to read this I will have to write a post about how I feel about the changes, but just flipping through it and seeing some of the different formatting I am flipping out, and not in a good way. Double-plus ungood. I will have to decide whether or not to use the new formatting for my citations in future posts.
Daniel Shank Cruz 