Mennonite Memoir

Mennonite memoir links, collected as most recent first. Not comprehensive but related mostly to posts in this blog:

Melanie Springer Mock reviews Mennonite Memoirs for the Mennonite press.

  • in 2011 she wrote

Review of Jean Janzen’s Into the Wild

Review of Rhoda Janzen’s Does this Church Make Me Look Fat?

Review of Ted Swartz’s Laughter is Sacred Space

A memoir about a young man learning to teach in the Congo in the 1960’s: Congo Dawn by John Franz

Here’s a review of Mennonite/s Writing VI  also a blog post about Mennonites and Yeats

Conrad Grebel University College has created a wonderful 2012 series of nine weeks of author presentations, beginning with the “father” of Mennonite literature, Rudy Wiebe, on the subject of reviewing their own careers (memoir!). Here is a collection of videos featuring well-known Canadian Mennonite writers as well as American poet Julia Kasdorf. The video offerings are listed on the right hand side of the screen under the names of the speakers:

A recent issue from the Center for Mennonite Writing is devoted to memoir. Don’t miss Ann Hostetler’s excellent introduction if you are interested in this sub-genre of memoir.

A Mennonite Woman: Exploring Spiritual Life and Identity, by Dawn Ruth Nelson, reviewed by me in the Mennonite Quarterly Review here

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen, reviewed here.

Mennonite in Blue Jeans, by Rhonda Langley, reviewed in Mennonite World Review here.

At Powerline and Diamond Hill, by Lee Snyder, reviewed here.

Emma, by Ervin Stutzman, reviewed here.

A Hundred Camels, by Gerald. L. Miller, reviewed here.

The Steppes Are the Colour of Sepia, by Connie Braun, reviewed here.

Because I Can by Janet Oberholtzer, interviewed here

Growing Up Plain by ShirleyKurtz described in her essay here.

The two-volume set of short memoirs from the Anabaptist Center for Religion and Society is a great resource.

Just received: Small Steps Toward the Missing Peace: A Memoir by James C. Juhnke

Announcing a book contract for my own memoir — along with a request for your help in building a community around it: here.

This is not a complete list! See titles from Cascadia Press for more.

See also these suggestions from Ann Hostetler at the Center for Mennonite Writing.  Rolling Down Black Stockings by Esther Royer Ayers (Kent State 2005) and Ira Wagler’s Growing Up Amish (Tyndale House 2011).

Anabaptist is the name common to a number of groups who all trace their origins to the radical reformation in 16th-century Europe. I created a category for Anabaptist memoirs. These include Amish, Hutterite, and Mennonite.

Amish memoir:

Why I Left the Amish, by Saloma Miller Furlong, reviewed here.

Hutterite memoir:

I Am Hutterite, by Mary-Ann Kirkby, reviewed here