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 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 genderqueer bisexual 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 an oppressed group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.
It was an especially good, especially haiku-focused month. The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.
2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
3. Finished writing an essay on Diane di Prima’s haiku and submitted it to a journal.
4. Submitted five poems to the 2024 British Haiku Society members’ anthology and had one chosen.
5. Submitted eight poems to Frogpond.
6. Submitted fifteen poems to The Heron’s Nest and had them all rejected.
7. Submitted ten poems to Blithe Spirit and had two accepted.
8. Submitted fifteen poems to Modern Haiku and had one accepted.
9. Attended the Haiku Social Club’s Zoom meeting for the first time in several years.
10. Had a positive review of my book Ethics for Apocalyptic Times published in the Ancillary Review of Books.
11. Had my memoir manuscript rejected by a publisher.
12. Had a book that James Knippen and I wrote together, It Breaks Your Heart: Haiku and Senryu on the 2023 New York Mets, published by Redheaded Press.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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