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Reading Daniel Shank Cruz’s provocative new book of critical and autobiographical writing, Ethics for Apocolyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature, I was reminded of Janet Kauffman, a poet and fiction writer who had once been so important to me that she blurbed my first collection of poems more than 30 years ago. I pulled five of her books from my shelf—one an uncorrected proof purchased at The Strand in the early 1980s, another inscribed as a Christmas present from an NYU undergraduate classmate. Here is an author who had helped me to figure out how to be a Mennonite writer—but that was so long ago, I’d almost forgotten about her.

 So, in the exuberantly communal spirit of Cruz’s book, I sent her an e-mail message, and she kindly wrote back. That exchange led to an animated Zoom conversation, where I learned about her work as an environmental activist and joyful, innovative author. And then this written exchange. It feels like a gift to be able to bring Janet Kauffman back into the Mennonite Writing conversation with this interview, which begins with the usual sort of questions, but gets very large in idea and even philosophy! The DIY books, which can be ordered at the end of the interview, are lively works of visual and verbal art, suggestive of more new directions for Mennonite literature.

--Julia Spicher Kasdorf

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Julia and Janet, August 2024, Hudson, Michigan