Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping 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.
3. Submitted a personal essay to a journal.
4. Submitted ten poems to Frogpond.
5. Found out that I did not win a haiku chapbook contest that I submitted to in November.
6. Continued my MFA coursework and had a short story workshopped.
7. Had a poem published in Modern Haiku 53, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2022): 19. “Halloween / fewer and fewer / pandemic haiku.” This poem was written, submitted, and accepted before the Omicron surge. It will be interesting to see in the next few months whether more pandemic haiku/senryu start to appear again as a result of the recent new waves of illness.
8. Presented virtually at AWP 2022 and also attended the in-person conference in Philadelphia, where I had some good conversations with fellow writers and attended a few helpful panels.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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