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. Sent two chapters of my MFA thesis (a.k.a. my memoir) to my advisor and continued to work on the thesis.
4. Received one of Paragraph‘s MFA residencies.
5. Submitted a personal essay to a journal.
6. Had another personal essay rejected by a journal.
7. Had two poems included in the first issue of Heterodox Haiku.
8. Attended and presented at the ninth Mennonite/s Writing conference, which was held in Goshen, Indiana.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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