One of my 2021 goals is to keep a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself–to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of the pandemic (Which is still going on! Keep wearing masks!)–and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I will include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.
I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a queer disabled writer of color because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of a marginalized group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.
The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.
2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies website.
3. Submitted ten haiku/senryu to Kingfisher and had one accepted for the next issue.
4. Began working on my memoir manuscript again for the first time since April.
5. Had the ten haiku/senryu I submitted to Frogpond last month rejected.
6. Submitted ten haiku/senryu to Acorn.
7. Had a review of Nikki Reimer‘s poetry collection My Heart is a Rose Manhattan published in the Journal of Mennonite Studies 39 (2021): 216-19.
8. Started my MFA program! Woohoo!
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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