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. Had a senryu published in Dawn Returns: Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2022: “sunbeam / on the cat / on the poetry shelf.”
4. Submitted a personal essay to a journal and had it rejected.
5. Had a review of Casey Plett’s short story collection A Dream of a Woman published in the Journal of Mennonite Studies.
6. Had another personal essay rejected by a journal.
7. Had a haiku published in Modern Haiku: “Memorial Day / embers / another mass shooting.”
8. Had a senryu published in Frogpond: “morning petrichor / the ambulance / splatters a puddle.”
9. Continued to work on my MFA thesis/memoir and got feedback on two chapters from my advisor.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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