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 (WHICH ARE ESPECIALLY TERRIBLE IN THE U.S.A. RIGHT NOW–make no mistake, the current “presidential” administration is a fascist one), so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.
The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
2. Submitted ten poems to Kingfisher and had two accepted.
3. Found out which poem I had submitted to the 2026 Haiku Canada members’ anthology last month got accepted.
4. Submitted three poems to the 2026 British Haiku members’ anthology.
5. Submitted fifteen poems to Mariposa.
6. Turned down an invitation to peer review a book.
7. Had to withdraw from a writing retreat I was scheduled to be a speaker at in March due to some events in my personal life.
Daniel Shank Cruz 