Daniel Shank Cruz

Books Acquired Recently: Wedding Edition

My partner and I got married on Friday, and did some shopping at local bookstores with some money we received as a gift to celebrate. Clerc’s, Mandel’s, and Nelson’s books were bought at Little City Books in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the others were bought at the Strand in Manhattan.

Baker, Nicholson. Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act. 2020. New York: Penguin Books, 2021.

Baker is one of my favorite writers, but I haven’t had a chance to get to his latest book yet. I decided that now is the time despite its depressing-sounding subject matter.

Clerc, Benoît. David Bowie: All the Songs; The Story Behind Every Track. Trans. Simon Burrows, Caroline Higgitt, Paul Ratcliffe. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2021.

This is the book my partner chose as my wedding gift. Bowie is an important queer role model for me, so I look forward to reading it!

Kern, Leslie. Feminist City. 2019. London: Verso, 2021.

As a city person, I enjoy reading about cities, and I’m interested in reading about how to make them more just.

Mandel, Emily St. John. Sea of Tranquility. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022.

I love Mandel’s earlier novel Station Eleven, and decided to buy Sea of Tranquility after reading about its relationship to the earlier book. There is an intriguing sticker on the dust jacket of Sea of Tranquility that reads “Signed first edition with exclusive content.” It is, indeed, autographed, but the copyright page simply calls it the “First Edition” without any other noting of the “exclusive content.” However, at the back of the book there is a note from Mandel that says that she believes in supporting independent presses and independent bookstores, so this edition, which has an extra chapter of the novel Marienbad (a fictional novel within Sea of Tranquility) in it following Mandel’s note, is being sold exclusively at independent bookstores. How cool!

Nelson, Maggie. Bluets. Seattle: Wave Books, 2009.

I enjoy all of Nelson’s work that I’ve read and have been wanting to read this collection for a while. I finally saw it on a bookstore shelf and decided that now is the time.

Strachey, Dorothy. Olivia. 1949. New York: Penguin Books, 2020.

Carley Moore’s fantastic new novel Panpocalypse mentions Strachey’s book, which I hadn’t heard of before. I decided to buy it based on this reference.

Writing Activity, March 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. Submitted a personal essay to a journal.

4. Submitted ten poems to Frogpond.

5. Found out that I did not win a haiku chapbook contest that I submitted to in November.

6. Continued my MFA coursework and had a short story workshopped.

7. Had a poem published in Modern Haiku 53, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2022): 19. “Halloween / fewer and fewer / pandemic haiku.” This poem was written, submitted, and accepted before the Omicron surge. It will be interesting to see in the next few months whether more pandemic haiku/senryu start to appear again as a result of the recent new waves of illness.

8. Presented virtually at AWP 2022 and also attended the in-person conference in Philadelphia, where I had some good conversations with fellow writers and attended a few helpful panels.

Books Acquired Recently: Mostly AWP Edition

This past week I attended the 2022 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) annual conference. Here’s what I got at the book fair:

Allende, Carlos. Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love. Pasadena, CA: Red Hen Press, 2022.

This novel has a fantastic title and came with a free t-shirt, so I bought it. I was able to get it autographed as well.

Alvarado, Moncho Ollin. Greyhound Americans. Ardmore, PA: Saturnalia Books, 2021.

I’m always on the lookout for other queer Latinx writers.

Barrett, Kay Ulanday. More Than Organs. Little Rock, AR: Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020.

I read this excellent poetry collection as soon as I bought it on Thursday. Recommended!

Darling, Kristina Marie, and Carol Guess. X Marks the Dress: A Registry. New York: Persea Books, 2015.

I had not heard of either of the authors before, but this poetry collection’s intriguing subtitle caught my attention.

Febos, Melissa. Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. New York: Catapult, 2022.

I went straight to Catapult’s table as soon as the book fair opened and bought this hotly anticipated book before they ran out of copies.

Friend, Tyler. Him or Her or Whatever. Boulder, CO: Alternating Current Press, 2022.

I went to a poetry reading that included Friend on Wednesday night and really enjoyed their work, so I decided to buy their book, and was able to get it autographed. Oddly, they did not sign on the title page, the customary spot, but I see now that this is because the title is huge on the page, leaving almost no room for writing.

Huber, Sonya. Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day. Columbus, OH: Mad Creek Books, 2021.

The title totally sold me on this book.

Liu, Timothy. Let it Ride. Ardmore, PA: Saturnalia Books, 2019.

I like Liu’s early work, but haven’t read any of his recent stuff, so I was excited to see this book for sale. He signed it for me, and I also got a free t-shirt for buying two books from Saturnalia!

Milks, Megan. Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body. New York: Feminist Press, 2021.

This novel was recently nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, so when I saw it at the Feminist Press table and found out Milks was available to sign copies I bought one.

Philyaw, Deesha. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2020.

I read this collection of short stories on the train home and it is fantastic!

Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. Trans. Bruce Benderson. New York: Feminist Press, 2013.

I’ve seen this book cited lots of places, and decided to finally buy it because Feminist Press had it on sale.

Salesses, Matthew. Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping. New York: Catapult, 2021.

Even though I don’t write fiction, I’ve heard good things about how this book rethinks traditional workshopping, so thought it would be helpful to read.

The others:

Bellamy, Dodie. The Buddhist. Portland: Allone Co. Editions, 2011.

My obsession with Bellamy continues as I continue to track down some of her harder-to-find books.

Green, Leah Naomi. The More Extravagant Feast. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2020.

This is a birthday gift from my sister, who knows the poet.

Books Acquired Recently: Birthday Edition

Yesterday my partner took me to the Strand to buy me some books for my birthday. Here’s what I got:

Baraka, Amiri. SOS: Poems 1961-2013. New York: Grove Press, 2014.

I love Baraka’s work and have taught it in numerous courses. I already own a number of his books, which is why I didn’t buy this mammoth collection when it first came out, but I found a copy for $20.00, so decided it was time.

Myles, Eileen. Chelsea Girls. 1994. New York: Ecco, 2015.

—. Cool for You. 2000. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2017.

—. For Now. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020.

I began reading Myles’s poetry over the past few years and really enjoy it, so I decided to check out some of their prose.

My Interview with Samuel R. Delany

A few weeks ago I had the honor of interviewing Samuel R. Delany for the Dangerous Visions: Radical Science Fiction virtual symposium, which was sponsored by City Lights Bookstore and PM Press. We talked a lot about his most recent books, but also discussed some of his early career as well. You can watch the interview here, and links to the symposium’s other sessions are here.

Books Acquired Recently: Queer Edition

Delany, Samuel R. The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch–“Angouleme”. 1978. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2014.

—. The Tragedy of Ophelia: Two Essays. N.p.: Samuel R. Delany, 2021.

These are the only two of Delany’s nearly fifty books that I did not own until now. I decided it was time to complete my collection.

Gerrity, Jeanne, and Anthony Huberman, eds. Dodie Bellamy is On Our Mind. San Francisco: CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts/South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2020.

My recent obsession with Bellamy’s writing has gotten to the point where I am ready to begin reading critical examinations of her work, so I bought this book of essays and photographs.

Moore, Carley. Panpocalypse. New York: Feminist Press, 2022.

My pre-ordered copy of Moore’s new novel arrived earlier this week even though the book has not technically been released yet. I’m a little more than halfway through it and it is amazing thus far!

Writing Activity, February 2022

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Submitted ten poems to Kingfisher, all of which they rejected.

3. Began the second semester of my MFA program. Thus far, the semester has included writing my first lyric poem in about four years (which I subsequently submitted to a journal), and my first short story in twenty. I also had some nonfiction workshopped, which went well.

4. Submitted a craft essay to a magazine and had it rejected.

5. Got asked to review a forthcoming book on Mennonite literature by a journal I’ve never published in before, and said yes.

6. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.

7. Interviewed Samuel R. Delany for the Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction symposium co-sponsored by City Lights Bookstore and PM Press. You can watch the interview here.

8. Submitted an essay about Frank O’Hara that I wrote last semester to a journal.

Books Acquired Recently

Hacker, Marilyn. Presentation Piece. New York: Viking, 1974.

I was recently reading Samuel R. Delany’s book Occasional Views, Volume 2, which mentions this book of Hacker’s (they were married for a while). It contains some poems about some events he discusses in his memoir, The Motion of Light in Water, so I decided to buy it.

Srinivasan, Amia. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

I was able to order a free exam copy of this book from the virtual book fair at MLA in January. It came a few days ago.

Books Acquired Recently

Delany, Samuel R. Occasional Views, Volume 2: “The Gamble” and Other Essays. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2021.

This collection of essays is dated 2021 but just came out a week or so ago, presumably because of pandemic-related “supply chain issues.” As with Volume 1, it is a fascinating, valuable collection of hard-to-find or previously unpublished pieces that are mostly from the latter part of Delany’s career.

Janzen, Rhoda. Mennonite Meets Mr. Right: A Memoir of Faith, Hope, and Love. New York: Grand Central, 2013.

This is the sequel to Janzen’s bestselling Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, which is probably the most famous Mennonite memoir ever, and certainly the most controversial. I figured that now that I am doing an MFA in creative nonfiction I should actually read this sequel, which did so poorly when it first came out that the title was changed between the hardcover and paperback editions (the original title was Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?). I started reading it yesterday, and it is marred by the same casual queerphobia used for laughs as Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, so I am not a fan.

Books Acquired Recently

Bellamy, Dodie. The TV Sutras. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2014.

My newfound obsession with Bellamy continues!

Nunez, Sigrid. What Are You Going Through. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.

Nunez is teaching at Hunter this semester and is giving a reading tomorrow night. I decided to buy her most recent novel in preparation for the reading.

Ruefle, Mary. Dunce. Seattle: Wave Books, 2019.

Ruefle is also reading at Hunter this semester. I haven’t read any of her poetry before, but keep seeing her name pop up various places, and thus decided that I should read some of her work.