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. Worked on my novel.
3. Submitted ten poems to Kingfisher and had three accepted for their next issue. This is the most I’ve ever had accepted at once.
4. Had a panel proposal I am part of accepted for AWP’s 2024 conference.
5. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
6. Got invited to contribute to a special issue of a journal on a book in one of my fields.
7. Had dinner with four other New York City-area Mennonite writers and one visiting from Manitoba.
8. Wrote and submitted a commissioned book review to the Journal of Mennonite Studies.
9. Had the eight poems I submitted to Frogpond last month rejected.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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