CMW Community

The CMW Community offers a space for readers, writers, students, and scholars to interact around the subject of Mennonite writing. It houses the CMW Journal Discussion as well as the CMW News.

Recent News Stories

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    Jeff Gundy is Image Artist of the Month

    August 12, 2010

    Jeff Gundy, featured poet in the current issue of the CMW Journal (see our home page), is the Image "Artist of the Month." See this link for details on Image Update:

    http://imagejournal.org/page/artist-of-the-month/jeff-gundy-2

    From the article: [Gundy's] poetry and essays are rooted in the Mennonite tradition, which he credits with giving him “the sense that things outside of my pathetic life matter, and that I ought to think about my own problems and ambitions in the context of something much larger.” From these roots he draws both a sense of humility and a prophetic impulse ...

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    Todd Davis on Poetry Daily

    July 30, 2010

    Poetry Daily will feature poems by Todd Davis on August 3 and August 10.

    On August 3rd, in their "features" section, they will be featuring "The Girl Who Taught a Chicken to Walk Backwards," as part of a highlight for the 60th anniversary issue of Shenandoah.

    On August 10th they will feature "None of This Could Be Metaphor" as the daily poem while highlighting The Least of These, Davis's most recent collection, published by Michigan State University Press.

    Check it out at http://poems.com

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    In Our Next Issue . . .

    July 16, 2010

    September 2010 -- Enabling Constraints: The Prophetic Art of Sylvia Gross Bubalo and Christine Wiebe

    This issue will feature the poetry and art of Sylvia Gross Bubalo and Christine Wiebe, two women from Mennonite roots who made significant creative contributions in the visual arts and poetry. Guest edited by Ann Hostetler

    Would you like to see your work in our Journal? Here is a preview of upcoming issues with submission deadlines. We will occasionally insert special features into forthcoming issues, such as a featured poet or a book review or a report on a special event. As always, we appreciate your ...

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    Summer Reading Issue!

    July 16, 2010

    Our featured poet for the July issue is the well-known, award-winning poet Jeff Gundy, who offers six new poems published here for the first time! Scroll down to the bottom of the "Journal" column on the left of our home page to find the poetry feature.

    Then check out the creative and critical work in our biggest issue yet--on a best-selling, yet critically overlooked topic: serial fiction by and about Mennonites.

    Ever wondered what was really in those Amish romance and mysteries? Or why they've become such a cultural phenomenon? Recent press in the publishing industry reports that "bonnet ...

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    Former Goshen College President J. Lawrence Burkholder dies

    June 24, 2010

    In 1971 Burkholder left the Ivy League to lead the small college in Northern Indiana he knew intimately. He returned to Goshen College to serve as its 11th president with the conviction that "Mennonites had something to contribute to the world, and I wanted to be part of it," he said.

    Burkholder, who served as president until 1984, began his presidency with a simple religious service and the planting of 138 trees around campus. "I wanted to bring beauty to a campus that seemed somewhat barren," he said. "And I hoped to soften and humanize the image of the ...

Recent Journal Discussion

  • Chasing the Bonnet

    On August 12, 2010 Ervin Beck wrote:
    If you want to find women characters in Mennonite serial fiction who are "more out-spoken and feisty than the norm," try the detective novels of Judy Clemens.
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  • Chasing the Bonnet

    On August 12, 2010 Beth Graybill wrote:
    Thanks, Melanie, I'm glad for your response. As a sometimes professor of women's studies on college campuses, I share your concerns re: women's ultimate lack of power in the romance genre, in general, and its problematic message for women. Perhaps I erred in trying to present the genre as value-neutral. (Of course, Beverly Lewis, with whom I have spoken, would tell you that she looks for characters that are more out-spoken and feisty than the norm.) On the other hand, according to the women in Janice Radway's reader-response research, women read romance novels largely for escapism, not as guides for living. So perhaps we can all relax a bit, and simply try to compensate our students with healthier fare. After all, the Christian romance genre is big on a sense of comfort that God is ultimately in control.
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  • Chasing the Bonnet

    On July 28, 2010 Melanie Springer Mock wrote:
    Thank you so much for this analysis of the Amish romance and its popularity. Very thoughtful and well-researched. I've been fascinated with the readership of these books since stumbling across the Time article. My mother-in-law gave me a Beverly Lewis book several years ago, but I never read it until Time convinced me this was a phenomena worth exploring further. I struggle with the notion that these books are wholesome, though. I read approx. half a dozen Amish romances in the past year, and found their general message to their women audiences highly problematic: that is, that women have no real agency, and that their only hope in a meaningful life is to find a man (and a hunky Germanic one at that). Yes, of course, this is the ideal of the romance novel, but I'm troubled that so many evangelical Christians buy into this idealization of romance and of male/female relationships, and call this idealization "wholesome." I think this mythology creates plenty of problems for my female college students, who buy into the notions they read about in Christian romances. And--as I suggest in an presentation I wrote about Amish romances--I think the novels' fundamental message is no different than TV shows like The Bachelor, which provide an ideal setting, ideal male characters, and passive females whose only goal is to win the heart of a man. (And don't get me started on what I think about the misrepresentations of adoption. :) ) Anyway, I guess I'm not the ideal reader for the Amish romance, but I'm troubled by its success in the Christian market. Thank you for analyzing the nuances of this success! Melanie Springer Mock
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