Queer Mennonite Literature

Vol. 10, No. 3

Guest Editor, Daniel Shank Cruz

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In this issue:

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Introduction: Queer Mennonite Literature

by Daniel Shank Cruz

Any reasonable observer of the field of Mennonite literature must agree that it is currently flourishing. Alongside a still-active first generation of Mennonite writers, a second, prolific generation of writers has emerged.[i] In addition to this creative work, new scholarly collections such as After Identity: Mennonite Writing in North America and 11 Encounters with Mennonite Fiction are evidence of the field's robust discourse.[ii]

Queer Mennonite literature is becoming more and more visible as a movement within this recent activity. Lots of younger Mennonite authors are writing queerly, whether in terms of writing about LGBTQ2IA+[iii] experiences or also …
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A Brief History and Bibliography of Queer Mennonite Literature

by Daniel Shank Cruz

In a 2008 personal essay, Jan Guenther Braun explains that she writes as a starting point for the creation of "queer Mennonite academic history."[i] Happily, in the decade since her essay, the body of queer Mennonite writing that Braun calls for has come into being, encompassing both creative writing and literary criticism. The present bibliography reveals this boom, which has led to queer writing becoming an important subfield of Mennonite literature. Perhaps surprisingly, the bibliography also shows that the roots of queer subject matter in Mennonite literature stretch back at least a quarter century before Braun's essay.[ii] This …
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Rejecting Maleness: An Apology to the Revolution

by Miriam Suzanne

Thanksgiving with friends and strangers. I still wear a beard, but my nails are iridescent. This is how I measure time, before Caitlyn. The conversation turns to a trans woman I've never met. I've never met any trans women, that I know of. My friend says:

—If we eliminate these rigid gender roles, would anyone need to be trans?

Over the years, this question takes many forms:

—What does it mean to "experience" one's gender as this or that?

—What does it mean to "feel like" a woman?

—What does "being a woman" mean to you?

—Can't you just be …
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ARCHIVES AT A TIME

by Kandis Friesen

ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF WAR
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF NOT-WAR
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF ECONOMIC CRISIS
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF INFLATION
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF CORRUPTION
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF NATIONALISM
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF OCCUPATION
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF LOSS
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF NEOLIBERALISM
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF DISPLACEMENT
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF DISINVESTMENT
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF DIASPORA
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF NOSTALGIA
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF VIOLENCE
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF INDIFFERENCE
ARCHIVES AT A TIME OF HOPE
ARCHIVES AT A …
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Gravity's End, The Para-Architectural and The Not Not-ruins

by Kandis Friesen

The buttress is an exoskeleton. It is necessary and functional, it shows that support is needed. It exposes the impending collapse if it were not there. Its size and construction imply its objective as a long-term goal, that it must remain for some time, that it must endure a persistent task—a large and persistent task.

It is simple. It is strong in its simplicity, it was thought out, designed, adjusted, then built to fit this specific building, these specific walls, this specific ground, this specific place. It is untreated, it is weathered, it adds itself as a …
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Isaac Bowman's Birthday: An Excerpt from "Plain Love: A Novel"

by Andrew Harnish

"But all of us together are but a party of children wandering in from the country, travel-stained, tired, and bewildered with glory."

-Robert Hugh Benson

3.

Like a prince Isaac sat there, like a prince at his table. He swung his legs, glanced over at his closest friend, Luke Sauder, and back at the wooden clock beside the window. The second hand swung triumphantly up toward twelve o'clock. 57 seconds, 58.

'It's time,' Isaac cried, as the clock struck twelve. 'It's time.'

At the stove, his mother kept stirring. Finally, she turned, her blue eyes wide with warning. It was …
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An Excerpt from "Don't Drive Too Fast, Don't Stay Too Late, and Be Good"

by Jan Guenther Braun

The pants had Wayne Gretzky's signature embroidered across the back pocket. I felt powerful, like the Great One's signature stitched across my ass was surely a precursor to all of my dreams eventually coming true. Grandma Klassen used to have us over every Sunday afternoon and, as was her practice, she had bags of used clothing waiting for each of us. I still wonder how on God's green earth she got her hands on that many used clothes; there were six of us.

Henry started digging through his bag without much enthusiasm. He never liked to seem excited, like it …
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An Excerpt from Gonzalo Vega and the Portal Down Below

by Stephen Beachy

The cottage where Gonzalo was recuperating was one of eight identical cottages between an abandoned business and an alley that ran south toward Mexico. Gonzalo's right foot was gone; how exactly, he couldn't remember. Philip, the strange little man who had nursed him back to health, had found him bleeding on the street in downtown San Diego, unconscious. There'd been an explosion, and only Gonzalo's fire retardant properties had saved him from major skin burns, Philip said. Philip was growing him a replacement foot, but it wasn't ready yet, and Gonzalo was still ill.

He was often feverish. He would …
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Two Poems

by Lynnette D'anna

posthumous

I dream a rocky coast somewhere in Galapagos a lizard

penetrates me lazily with forever on his mind winking one staid eye

pretending to be wise as though age has anything to do with knowing truth

opus dust rises like a soft slow mist from his ancient smoky bones

and under this duress I reluctantly confess to knowing well before

we started this affair that you were buried long ago

that your spirit is an orchestra of blistered plastic

comes as no surprise since you reside in hell

your open mouth upon my skin the soft and secret whispered …
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The Finest of Lines

by Kay Lorraine

I walk the finest of lines. Between unshakable faith and unflagging doubt. Between men and women, rich and poor, the haves and have-nots. Between my queer life and the straight world I inhabit regularly out of necessity. That line bounds my life, placing me in the World, but not of it, situating me in multiple spaces, yet assigning me comfortably to none.

The line between belonging and not belonging is a thin one, but it's tall and wide, like an industrially reinforced bulletproof glass enclosure pieced together from a million little prohibitions and minor denials of indulgence. Like grains of …
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A Birth, a Flag, and My Introduction to Military Erotica

by Becca J.R. Lachman

***

From: Rebecca Lachman

Date: November 2, 2012 2:22 PM EDT

To: Mann, Jeff

Subject: Our intertwined books

Greetings, Professor Mann.

My name is Becca J.R. Lachman. I'm a poet and composer who teaches writing at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. I've been meaning to email you for awhile because it seems we share a unique connection. Here's the story in a nutshell:

Last spring, my first collection of poetry The Apple Speaks was published. While visiting my hometown in NE Ohio, I distributed a few author copies among family members. My 83-yr-old Mennonite grandma handed me her copy for …