This blog features recent poetry by writers who are connected in some way with Mennonite culture, as well as new books by writers whose work appeared in A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry, edited by Ann Hostetler (Univ. of Iowa 2003). An anthology--or bouquet--of varied voices and writers is a snapshot in time from a particular editor's viewpoint. Of course writers keep on writing, and fortunately, new writers continue to emerge.  This blog, created in collaboration with students in Mennonite Literature at Goshen College, will attempt to capture some of this new productivity and talent, as well as update and amplify and earlier student-created site.

Goshen College has had a long history of student publishing in the English Department, with Pinchpenny Press, founded in 1969 by Nick Lindsay, and Broadside, founded a few years later by Ervin Beck. Red Cents, the literary arts magazine, was founded in 2005 by then-student Rosanna Nafziger. Several writers with national reputations got their start with Pinchpenny Press and Broadside, among them Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Jeff Gundy, Barbara Nickel, and David Waltner-Toews.

For a Journal that publishes creative writing, essays, and scholarship about Mennonite literature, see the Center for Mennonite Writing. Click on the Journal to find the archives of its theme-related issues.

Phil Stoesz reads from his PinchPenny Press book of poetry at Better World Books in Spring 2012. Photo by Ann Hostetler