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. Gave a reading of creative nonfiction and poetry at Utica University.
2. Had a good possible year for an apocalypse: poems longlisted for the 2025 Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Books Award.
3. Got invited to submit and began writing an essay for a forthcoming collection about Mennonot.
4. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
5. Submitted five poems to Trash Panda.
6. Had a poem, “late leaves / in the wind / the weight of family obligations,” and two book reviews published in Frogpond 49, number 1 (Winter 2026).
7. Had a good possible year for an apocalypse positively reviewed in Frogpond.
8. Had a poem, “shortest day looking for a front-page obituary,” published in Acorn 56 (Spring 2026).
9. Had Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature positively reviewed in the Journal of Mennonite Studies.
10. Attended the Haiku Poets of Northern California’s quarterly virtual meeting.
Daniel Shank Cruz 