Books Acquired Recently

Komurki, John Z. Stationery Fever: From Paper Clips to Pencils and Everything in Between. Munich: Prestel, 2016.

I’m obsessed with stationery, and recently heard about this book. It sounded intriguing, and I was able to find a used copy for a low price.

Steckel, Jan. Ghosts and Oceans. Las Vegas: Zeitgeist Press, 2023.

I heard about this short story collection with lots of bisexual characters from the author, who I’ve communicated with on social media. I had a chance to read it this week and really appreciate its depictions of queer joy.

Books Acquired Recently

Cerrone, Matthew. The New York Mets Fans’ Bucket List. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2017.

I received this and Green’s book as gifts from my grandmother-in-law, who knows that I am a huge Mets fan.

Chen, Angela. Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex. Boston: Beacon Press, 2020.

I’ve read very little about asexuality in comparison to other queer identities, so I bought this book as a move toward correcting that.

Dawson, Juno. This Book is Gay. Rev. ed. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Fire, 2021.

I’ve been buying and reading queer banned books lately partly to support the authors and partly as research for my job.

Green, David. 101 Reasons to Love the Mets. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2008.

Hahn, Kimiko. Foreign Bodies: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton, 2020.

I’ve enjoyed Hahn’s work since I began getting into poetry two decades ago, but have never acquired one of her books. One of my colleagues is getting rid of a bunch of her books because she is moving, so I got this book and Khatibi’s from her.

Khatibi, Abdelkébir. Class Warrior—Taoist Style. 1976. Trans. Matt Reeck. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017.

Moss, Jeremiah. Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York. New York: W.W. Norton, 2022.

I encountered a reference to this book in McKenzie Wark’s book Raving, which I’ve been reading this week, and which is fantastic. I decided to buy Moss’s book right away because it sounds amazing.

Books Acquired Recently

Carson, Eirinie. The Dead Are Gods: A Memoir. Brooklyn: Melville House, 2023.

I read about this memoir, which is about Carson’s best friend dying in her thirties and Carson’s attempts to make sense of their friendship in the aftermath, in the latest issue of Poets & Writers. I decided to buy it because I’ve been thinking a lot about adult friendships and how they work lately.

Huber, Sonya. Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook. Lakewood, OH: Belt Publishing, 2023.

I love Huber’s writing and I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Midwest, where I lived for eleven years, so I was very excited to hear about this new book and bought it right away.

Roth, John D. A Mennonite College for Everyone(?): Goshen College and the Quest for Identity and Inclusion, 1960-2020. Goshen, IN: Goshen College, 2023.

This new history of Goshen College, my alma mater, just came out, and I ordered it immediately. The parentheses around the question mark in the title are vexing me–just lean into the question and let the question mark stand. Also, this book will either be really good or completely infuriating. We’ll find out!

Writing Activity, August 2023

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.

Books Acquired Recently: Anthology Edition

Beckett, Rowan, ed. Against the Current: The Top 30 Contributors of #FemkuMag, Issues 1-30. Ohio: Moth Orchid Press, 2022.

#FemkuMag recently announced that they are on a one-year hiatus, and it is not clear whether they will return, so I decided to buy this anthology that I’ve had on my wish list for a while as an artifact of the journal in case it does go under.

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Roger J. Porter, eds. Eating Words: A Norton Anthology of Food Writing. 2015. New York: W.W. Norton, 2016.

I recently received this anthology from my partner as a gift.

Books Acquired Recently

Gabriele, Michael C. The History of Diners in New Jersey. Charleston, SC: American Palate, 2013.

This book was for sale by the cash register of my local drug store and I bought it on an impulse because I love diners (eating in them is by far the restaurant experience I have missed the most during the pandemic), and I suppose I should begin learning more about New Jersey now that I have lived here for more than two years.

Jakobson, Haley. Old Enough. New York: Dutton, 2023.

I saw someone mention online that this was the bisexual novel of the summer, so I bought it last week. I tore through it; it’s fantastic.

Raines, Jamie. The T in LGBT+: Everything You Need to Know About Being Trans. London: Vermilion, 2023.

My partner just gave me this book as a surprise gift. I look forward to reading it!

Books Acquired Recently

Barker, Meg-John, and Alex Iantaffi. Life Isn’t Binary: On Being Both, Beyond, and In-Between. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

I am working to read more books about genderqueerness. Purchasing this and Lawlor’s book are part of that effort.

Denis, Nelson A. War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony. 2015. New York: Bold Type Books, 2016.

I came across this book while browsing at Little City Books last week and it looked interesting, so I decided to buy it.

Lawlor, Andrea. Paul Takes the Form of a Modern Girl. 2017. New York: Vintage Books, 2019.

I am almost done with this novel already and it is amazing.

Wong, Alice. Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life. New York: Vintage Books, 2022.

I’ve been meaning to buy this book since it came out last year and finally got around to it when I saw it in the memoir section at Little City.

Books Acquired Recently

Glisch-Sánchez, David Luis, and Nic Rodríguez-Villafañe, eds. Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Brooklyn: Common Notions, 2023.

I have an essay in this anthology, and just received my contributor’s copy.

Lo, Malinda. Last Night at the Telegraph Club. New York: Dutton Books, 2021.

I’ve been meaning to read this queer novel set in 1950s San Francisco for a while, and finally got around to purchasing it. I’m about half way through and it is fantastic thus far.

Road, Cristy C. Next World Tarot. New York: Silver Sprocket, 2020.

I recently bought the Next World Tarot deck and it really spoke to me, so I bought this deluxe edition of the deck’s Little White Book to use as one of the commentaries I consult in my daily readings.

Writing Activity, July 2023

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 eight poems to Frogpond.

4. Had one of the poems I submitted to Modern Haiku last month accepted for the next issue.

5. Had a review of Sofia Samatar’s The White Mosque published in the new issue of Mennonite Life.

6. Had a personal essay, “Writing the Storm,” published in Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice, edited by David Luis Glisch-Sánchez and Nic Rodríguez-Villafañe (Brooklyn: Common Notions, 2023), 29-32.

7. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

Books Acquired Recently

Bongiovanni, Archie. Mimosa. New York: Abrams Comicarts Surely, 2023.

I recently read about this queer graphic novel and it sounded cool, so I ordered it. I’m hoping to have time to start it this weekend.

Nossel, Suzanne. Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. New York: Dey Street, 2020.

Nossel is the CEO of PEN America, where I recently began working, so my boss suggested that I read her book, and kindly bought me a copy.

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Bodymap: Poems. Toronto: Mawenzi House, 2015.

Sins Invalid. Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People; A Disability Justice Primer. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: Sins Invalid, 2019.

I’m trying to read as much Disability Justice literature as I can this summer both for my own sustenance as a disabled person and for a few writing projects I have going on. These two books are part of that reading. Also, Piepzna-Samarasinha has become one of my favorite writers over the past few years, so I am trying to catch up with her earlier work.