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 our times, 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 Latinx writer 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. Wrote and submitted a book review to Mennonite Life that will come out later this summer.
3. Had a haiku, “winter solstice / his sun tattoo / half under the sheet,” published in Kingfisher 7 (April 2023): 70.
4. Received and edited the proofs for my forthcoming book, Ethics for Apocalyptic Times, and compiled its Index.
5. Had a review of Miriam Toews’s novel Fight Night published in Mennonite Quarterly Review 97, no. 2 (2023): 269-70.
6. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
7. Turned in the final version of my MFA thesis, participated in my MFA program’s thesis reading, and completed my MFA. The two years went by so quickly!
8. Worked on another round of revisions to my memoir.
9. Began writing a novel.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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