My Response to AWP’s decision to Move The Writer’s Chronicle to an All-Digital Format

Yesterday, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) sent out an email to members announcing that AWP’s magazine, The Writer’s Chronicle, will no longer have a print version. Here is the text of the email:

“Dear Daniel, 
 
Thank you for your continued membership with AWP. We are reaching out to inform you of an upcoming change to the way you receive The Writer’s Chronicle. Beginning with the September 2022 issue, the magazine will now be offered only digitally and no longer in print. You can access The Writer’s Chronicle via our website or our mobile app, where you can also receive notifications when new issues are published.  
 
The digital version of the magazine will have the same layout as print while allowing us to offer many new features. For example, we now offer narration for all articles, and beginning with the September issue, we will provide an enhanced visual format, including multimedia content. Best of all, as a member, you now have access to full versions of over a decade of Writer’s Chronicle issues! 
 
After listening to feedback from our members, we have made the decision to discontinue the print version of the Chronicle to do our part to make the planet a greener place. This change also allows us to make the magazine more accessible to readers and writers with disabilities and gives us the flexibility to expand and modify our content. We hope you enjoy increased access to our digital archive. If you would like assistance accessing the digital magazine or downloading the app, please reach out to awp@awpwriter.org. 
 
Happy reading! 
 
Your AWP Membership Team”

I find this development deeply vexing, and sent this email in return:

“Dear AWP,

I must say that I am saddened and frustrated by this change. I appreciate the organization’s attempts to make The Writer’s Chronicle more accessible, but many people, myself included, have vision and cognitive disabilities that make reading on screens much more difficult than reading on paper. It would be nice if there was an option to still receive a print version. Yes, it’s possible to print from the website, but this requires time on the computer and places further cost on members for printing resources. As it stands, this decision makes one of the primary benefits of AWP membership much less enticing because we are paying more for less–I note that the email does not mention a reduction in dues because of this change.

It would also be helpful if you could be transparent about the “feedback from our members” that went into this decision. Were surveys conducted, and if so, what were the results? And so on. Maybe I am being cynical, but my immediate reaction was “they are doing this to save money on printing costs and using language about saving the environment to mask the true reason.” I may be wrong in this reaction, but sharing the data that went into the decision with members would allay such fears. If it IS a financial decision, that is a legitimate reason, but the organization should be honest about it. 

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to your response,

Daniel Shank Cruz”

If I get a response I will share it as well.

Books Acquired Recently

Calhoun, Ada. Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me. New York: Grove Press, 2022.

I bought this memoir because O’Hara is my favorite poet and because I’m always interested in personal narratives about interacting with literature.

Friesen, Lauren, and Dennis R. Koehn, eds. Anabaptist ReMix: Varieties of Cultural Engagement in North America. New York: Peter Lang, 2022.

I have an essay, “Mennonite Literature’s Queer Decolonial Anabaptist Vision,” in this new collection about Mennonite/Anabaptist engagement with broader society. My author’s copy arrived a few days ago.

Books Acquired Recently

Ajayi Jones, Luvvie. I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual. New York: Henry Holt, 2016.

—. Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual. Penguin Books, 2021.

I received these two books as gifts from my partner, who heard Ajayi Jones speak at a conference recently.

Ahmed, Sara. Complaint! Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021.

Fournier, Lauren. Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021.

Himmelfarb, Martha. The Apocalypse: A Brief History. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

These three books were recommended to me by a peer reviewer of a project I’m working on, so I am checking them out as a result of this suggestion.

Writing Activity, June 2022

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 the pandemic (Which is still going on! Keep wearing masks!), 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 writer of color 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 memoir manuscript.

3. Had a review of Jeff Gundy’s memoir Wind Farm published in the 2022 issue of Mennonite Life.

4. Had a poem accepted by Modern Haiku for their next issue.

5. Had a review of Robert Zacharias’s book of literary criticism Reading Mennonite Writing published in Ancillary Review of Books.

Books Acquired Recently

Faulk, Andrew M. My Epidemic: An AIDS Memoir of One Man’s Struggle as Doctor, Patient and Survivor. 3rd ed. N.p.: Culbertson Publishing, 2021.

I received this book as a gift. The person who gave it to me met the author at a conference and had the book inscribed to me. It’s a new edition with an epilogue about COVID-19 that I look forward to reading.

Torres, Christine Kandic. The Girls in Queens. New York: HarperVia, 2022.

I was just in Washington, D.C., and bought this novel at Busboys and Poets. I began reading it yesterday and halfway through I am loving it, partly because the two main characters are Mets fans!

Books Acquired Recently

Binnie, Imogen. Nevada. 2013. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.

This classic trans novel, which is one of my favorite books, has been out of print since its original publisher, Topside Press, closed in 2017. Happily, FSG has just put it back in print. Interestingly, the listed retail price on the original Topside printing is $17.95 and the price listed on the new printing is only $17.00.

Hattrick, Alice. Ill Feelings. 2021. New York: Feminist Press, 2022.

I saw a post about this hybrid memoir on Twitter and decided to buy it because I am writing one of my own.

Killian, Kevin. Spreadeagle. Portland: Publication Studio, 2012.

I’ve read a lot about Killian as a result of being in love with his wife Dodie Bellamy’s work, but have not actually read any of his writing. I decided to start my explorations of it with this novel, which sounds intriguing from what I’ve heard of it.

Books Acquired Recently

Andrew, Elizabeth Jarrett. Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit. Boston: Skinner House Books, 2021.

I saw an ad for this book in a magazine (I think it was Poets & Writers), and it intrigued me because I am also writing a memoir that is in part about my bisexuality and my spiritual journey, so I decided to buy it.

Gailey, Sarah. The Echo Wife. New York: Tor, 2021.

I received this novel as a gift, and look forward to reading it.

Marrocco, Christina. Addio, Love Monster. N.p.: Ovunque Siamo Press, 2022.

This is a novel by a former graduate school classmate that just came out. It’s always a great feeling to buy your friends’ books!

Writing Activity, May 2022

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 the pandemic (Which is still going on! Keep wearing masks!)–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 writer of color 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. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

3. Finished my second semester of MFA coursework.

4. Peer reviewed a journal article.

5. Worked on revisions to a scholarly book manuscript.

6. Wrote and submitted the book review that was solicited from me in February (see number 5; the review copy took a while to arrive).

7. Submitted seven poems to Modern Haiku.

8. Submitted a personal essay I wrote this past semester to a journal.

9. Worked on a memoir manuscript.

Book Acquired Recently: Gish Jen’s Tiger Writing

Jen, Gish. Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

I’m reading Matthew Salesses’s excellent book Craft in the Real World, which cites Jen’s book in fascinating enough ways that I decided to buy it. I haven’t read any of Jen’s work in about fifteen years, but I enjoyed it then, so I am looking forward to re-encountering it. I was able to find a used copy of the book in excellent condition for only $4.00 (it’s $40.00 new). It came in the mail yesterday and turned out to be autographed, a nice surprise!

Books Acquired Recently: Book Club Edition

Last night I went to Book Club, a combination bookshop/bar/coffeehouse in Manhattan, for the first time. Three authors read, and I bought two of their books.

Jones, Chloé Cooper. Easy Beauty: A Memoir. New York: Avid Reader Press, 2022.

Songsiridej, Alyssa. Little Rabbit. New York: Bloomsbury, 2022.