Jaquira Díaz is a Puerto Rican fiction writer, essayist, journalist, cultural critic, and professor. She is the author of ''Ordinary Girls'', which received a Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Finalist. She has written for ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

Time (magazine) ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

'', ''

The Best American Essays ''The Best American Essays'' is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.Robert Atwan (ed.), Adam Gopnick (guest ed.). ''The Best American Essays 2008'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. It was started in 1986 and is ...

'', ''

Tin House ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

'', '' The Sun'', ''

The Fader ''The Fader'' (stylized as ''FADER'') is a magazine based in New York City that was launched in 1999 by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. It was the first print publication to be released on iTunes. It is o ...

'', ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', '' Longreads'', '' ''and other places. She was an editor at the'' ''

Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...

'' ''and a visiting professor at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

.'' ''In 2022, she held the Mina Hohenberg Darden Chair in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University's MFA program and a Pabst Endowed Chair for Master Writers at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has taught creative writing at Colorado State University's MFA program, Randolph College's low-residency MFA program, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Kenyon College''. ''Díaz lives in New York with her spouse, British writer Lars Horn, and is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University.

Early life

Jaquira Díaz was born in Puerto Rico, to a white mother and a black father, into a family that lived in the Puerto Rican housing projects, colloquially referred to as ''el caserío''. The neighborhood was made up of government housing, and had something of a dangerous reputation. Díaz, in an interview she gave to ''Origins'', tells stories of being menaced by a machete-armed man, and of raids by the local Police force, referred to as ''los camarones''. When she was older, her family moved to Miami. Growing up in Miami Beach during what she describes as the city's "urban blight," she had a difficult life, marked by drug use, attempts at suicide, and encounters with the law. Díaz contributes some of her identity issues to being what she describes as "a closeted queer girl" in a neighborhood where gay people were harassed and attacked, and growing up biracial, as the black daughter of a white woman who didn't know how to raise black children. Another issue was the family's financial situation. Her father, who had studied at the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

and whom she describes as a lover of poetry and literature, became a drug dealer in order to support the family. As she grew older, writing continued to be an important outlet for her, and her writing developed a semi-autobiographical character, often dealing with suicide, drug use, and identity.

Career

Díaz's fiction and essays, which are predominantly set in Puerto Rico and Miami, have been described as "lyrical" and "urgent" and are often focused on the intensely personal tragedies and triumphs of young women maturing in a dangerous world. In addition to her literary writing, Díaz writes about crime, politics, sexuality, race, music, and culture, and has been described as an elegant prose stylist. In 2017,

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

critic Walton Muyumba listed Díaz as "part of a necessary cipher of extremely gifted freestylers" that includes writers

Ta-Nehisi Coates Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( ; born September 30, 1975) is an American author and journalist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at ''The Atlantic'', where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, parti ...

Isabel Wilkerson Isabel Wilkerson (born 1961) is an American journalist and the author of '' The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration'' (2010) and '' Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents'' (2020). She is the first woman of African-A ...

Carol Anderson Carol Anderson (born June 17, 1959) is an American academic. She is the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Her research focuses on public policy with regard to race, justice, and equality. Educatio ...

Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine (; born September 4, 1963) is an American poet, essayist, playwright and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays. Her book of poetry, '' Citizen: An American L ...

Terrance Hayes Terrance Hayes (born November 18, 1971) is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, ''Lighthead'', won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipient ...

Kiese Laymon Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974, Jackson, Mississippi) is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, ''Long D ...

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah (born 1982) is an American essayist. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2018 for her profile of white supremacist and mass murderer Dylann Roof, as well as a National Magazine Award. She was also a National Mag ...

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz (; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freed ...

, and

Jelani Cobb William Jelani Cobb (born August 21, 1969)
''Contemporary Black Biography''. Gale, 2005, updated January 4, 2007. Vi ...

, and she was listed among

Remezcla Remezcla is an American media company focusing on the Latin American cultural sphere. It serves the millennial market. History The brand was founded by Claire Frisbie, Andrew Herrera and Nuria Net in 2006, had no outside funding; it first recei ...

's "15 Latinx Music Journalists You Should be Reading" and was included in

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

Alt.Latino ''Alt.Latino'' is a radio show and podcast about Latin alternative music and Latinx culture on National Public Radio. The show launched in 2010 and is hosted by Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre. It features music as well as interviews with ...

's Favorites: The Songs of 2017, as one of "the cream of the crop of Latinx music writers." In 2018,

Electric Literature ''Electric Literature'' is an independent publisher founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a quarterly journal. It launched the first fiction magazine on the iPhone and iPad. The print version of the journal is produced via print ...

's Ivelisse Rodriguez named her among the writers who "are changing the topography of Puerto Rican literature," describing Díaz's essays as being "about the awakening of sexual desire and the sexual threat all women experience." Díaz holds a B.A. from the

University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...

and an M.F.A. from the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF i ...

, and has been the recipient of fellowships from

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...

, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the

, the

Ragdale Ragdale is the former summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869–1926), located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation, an artist residency program that hosts creators from a number of disc ...

Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts,

The MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

, the

Summer Writers' Workshop, the

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most ...

, the

Sewanee Writers' Conference The Sewanee Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The conference was started in 1989 by founding director Wyatt Prunty and the current director is Leah ...

, and an NEA Distinguished Fellowship from the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences. In 2022, she was awarded a Shearing Fellowship from the Berverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI). In May 2018, Díaz announced that she had signed a two-book deal with Algonquin Books; the first book, ''Ordinary Girls'', a memoir, will be published by Algonquin on October 29, 2019, and will explore themes of girlhood in a dangerous world, and coming of age in the projects of Puerto Rico and the streets of Miami. The second book, ''I am Deliberate'', will be a novel. Díaz teaches in the Writing program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Selected works

;Memoirs * ''Ordinary Girls'' (October 2019) ;Essays
"Ordinary Girls"
in ''

'' and ''

'' 2016 * "Girl Hood: On (Not) Finding Yourself in Books" in Her Kind, reprinted in Waveform: Twenty-first Century Essays by Women (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2014)
"My Mother and Mercy"
in '' The Sun'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2015)
"Beach City"
in '' Brevity'' and in Pushcart Prize XLII: Best of the Small Presses
"Baby Lollipops"
in '' The Sun'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2012) * "Monster Story" in '' Ninth Letter'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2017)
"How Memory is Written and Rewritten: On Adriana Paramo's My Mother's Funeral"
in the ''

Los Angeles Review of Books The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...

''
"Girls, Monsters"
in ''

'' (Reprinted in ''Best American Experimental Writing 2020'').
"You Do Not Belong Here"
in the ''

'' Online (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2018).
"La Otra"
in '' Longreads'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2019). ;Short stories
"A Fairy Tale Set in Florida, in 10 Parts"
in '' T: The New York Times Style Magazine'', in collaboration with Laura van den Berg, Lindsay Hunter,

Karen Russell Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, ''Swamplandia!'', was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honore ...

, Alissa Nutting, Andrew Holleran,

Lauren Groff Lauren Groff (born July 23, 1978) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written four novels and two short story collections, including '' Fates and Furies'' (2015), ''Florida'' (2018), and '' Matrix'' (2021). Early life and ed ...

Diana Abu-Jaber Diana Abu-Jaber ( ar, ديانا أبو جابر) is an American author and a professor at Portland State University. Early life and education Abu-Jaber was born in Syracuse, New York. Her father was Jordanian with a Palestinian Jerusalemite mot ...

, Sarah Gerard, and Jeff VanderMeer. * "Section 8" in ''

The Southern Review ''The Southern Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established by Robert Penn Warren in 1935 at the behest of Charles W. Pipkin and funded by Huey Long as a part of his investment in Louisiana State University. It publishes fiction ...

'' and Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses * "Ghosts" in ''The Kenyon Review'' (received Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses, and Notable Story in ''

The Best American Nonrequired Reading ''The Best American Nonrequired Reading'' was a yearly anthology of fiction and nonfiction selected annually by high school students in California and Michigan through 826 Valencia and 826michigan. The volume was part of ''The Best American Serie ...

'' 2014)
"December"
in '' Salon'', as part of the Two-sentence Holiday Fiction feature ;Other work
"Who Is the Real Kali Uchis?"
in ''

''
"Inside the Brutal Baby Lollipops Murder Case that Shook South Florida"
in ''

''
"Puerto Rico's Last Political Prisoner"
in ''

''
"Rescue From Dead Dog Beach"
in ''The Guardian'' 26 October 2015

Awards and honors

* 2023 Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction * 2023 Shearing Fellowship * 2022 Alonzo Davis Fellowship * 2020 Whiting Award in Nonfiction for Ordinary Girls * 2020 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Ordinary Girls * 2020

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

Finalist in Lesbian Memoir for Ordinary Girls * 2019 Discover Prize Finalist, Ordinary Girls * 2019 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, Ordinary Girls * 2019 Indie Next Pick, Ordinary Girls * 2019 Indies Introduce Selection, Ordinary Girls * 2017 Pushcart Prize for "Beach City" * 2017

Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award The Center for Women Writers is a literary arts organization based at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Center for Women Writers was established in 1996, which coincided with the 225th anniversary of the opening of Salem Academy & ...

for "Carraízo * 2016 The Krause Essay Prize Finalist for "Ordinary Girls" * 2014 Summer Literary Seminars Award in Nonfiction for "Ordinary Girls" * 2012 Pushcart Prize for "Section 8"

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Díaz, Jaquira American essayists Puerto Rican journalists American women journalists Living people American memoirists American short story writers American music critics American women music critics Puerto Rican writers American women essayists Puerto Rican LGBT writers People from Humacao, Puerto Rico People of Afro–Puerto Rican descent University of Central Florida alumni University of South Florida alumni University of South Florida faculty Year of birth missing (living people) American women memoirists American women academics Columbia University faculty Lambda Literary Award winners