Daniel Shank Cruz (they/multitudes) is Free Expression and Education Program Coordinator at PEN America, coordinating team efforts to fight educational censorship and providing support to a variety of projects. Prior to coming to PEN America, they spent a decade working as an English professor. Multitudes holds a BA from Goshen College, an MFA from Hunter College of the City University of New York, and an MA and PhD from Northern Illinois University. They are the author of a book of literary criticism, Queering Mennonite Literature: Archives, Activism, and the Search for Community (Penn State University Press, 2019), and a hybrid memoir/literary critical text, Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature (Penn State University Press, 2023). With James Knippen, they are co-author of It Breaks Your Heart: Haiku and Senryu on the 2023 New York Mets (Redheaded Press, 2024).
