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.
The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.
2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
3. Applied to and was successful in having an entry for myself created in the Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Registry.
4. Submitted five poems to the Haiku Society of America’s 2024 members’ anthology and had one chosen. This item is one of the top highlights of the month because the editor chose a poem that I really like that I’ve been trying to get published for about four years. I am thrilled that it will have a home!
5. Had one of the poems I submitted to Frogpond last month accepted.
6. Wrote and submitted an essay proposal about the Star tarot card to The Rebis.
7. Had three haiku accepted for an anthology.
8. Had a poem, “in season watermelon emojis,” published in Acorn 52 (Spring 2024): 16. Free Palestine!
9. Had five poems I submitted to an anthology rejected.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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