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 based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

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

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The Fader ''The Fader'' is a magazine established in 1999 as an outlet for Cornerstone Agency, a marketing and public relations firm established by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. History and work It is owned by T ...

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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. The magazine was first known fo ...

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The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

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'', ''''. She was an editor at the'' ''

Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, 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 in litera ...

'' ''and a visiting professor at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

.'' ''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. Her family 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 after rotating between Humacao and Fajardo. Growing up in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

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. Another issue was the family's financial situation. Her father, who had studied at the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Universidad de Puerto Rico;'' often shortened to UPR) is the main List of state and territorial universities in the United States, public university system in the Commonwealth (U.S. i ...

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. Her memoir ''Ordinary Girls'' highlights her experience as a Queer Afro-Latina woman growing up in a turbulent and homophobic community.

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'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

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, journalist, and activist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at ''The Atlantic'', where he wrote about cultural, social, and political is ...

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 Elaine 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. In ...

Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine (; born September 4, 1963) is a Jamaican-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 A ...

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 2014, he received a MacArthur Fellowship ...

Kiese Laymon Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974, in Jackson, Mississippi) is an American writer. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, ''Long Division'' (2013), and two m ...

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 ...

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz ( ; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience ...

, and

Jelani Cobb William Jelani Cobb (born William Anthony Cobb; August 21, 1969)
''Contemporary Black Biography''. Gale, 2005, updated Ja ...

, 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 re ...

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

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

Alt.Latino ''Alt.Latino'' is a radio show and podcast about Latin alternative music and Latinx culture, produced by NPR. The show launched in 2010 and is hosted by Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre. It features music and interviews with Latino musician ...

'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 American literary magazine. History Founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a print quarterly journal, ''Electric Literature'' transitioned to a daily website in 2012 under the helm of Halimah Ma ...

'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 university, public research university with its main campus in unincorporated area, unincorporated Orange County, Florida, United States. It is part of the State University System of Florida. ...

and an M.F.A. from the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

, and has been the recipient of fellowships from

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, 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. ''T ...

, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the

, the

Ragdale Ragdale is the former summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, 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 disciplines: non ...

Foundation, the

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is a residential artist community in Amherst, Virginia, USA. Since 1971, VCCA has offered residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling for international artists, writers, and composers at ...

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

, 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 was published by Algonquin on October 29, 2019, exploring themes of girlhood in a dangerous world, and coming of age in the projects of Puerto Rico and the streets of Miami. In Díaz's memoir she emphasizes her struggles dealing with her identity, trauma, and family. Though ''Ordinary Girls'' is considered a memoir, Jaquira Díaz refers to it is a "anti-memoir," since her book is not as chronological as traditional memoirs. Her second book, ''I am Deliberate'', will be a novel. Díaz teaches in the writing program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Personal life

Jaquira Díaz is a queer Afro-Latina who grew up in the public housing projects of Puerto Rico and later moved to Miami. She spent much of her adolescence on the streets, as a teenage runaway and a "juvenile delinquent." In her early childhood, Díaz's father was a drug dealer, while her mother was described as "temperamental and violent" and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After moving to Miami Beach, her father worked as a security guard. Díaz met her partner who is also a writer in December 2018.

Selected Works

Memoirs

Novels

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 ''

'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2015)
"Beach City"
in '' Brevity'' and in

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

XLII: Best of the Small Presses
"Baby Lollipops"
in ''

'' (Notable Essay in ''

'' 2012) * "Monster Story" in ''

Ninth Letter ''Ninth Letter'' is a literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration between thSchool of Art + Designand the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign ...

'' (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 201 ...

''
"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 ''

'' (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 Laura van den Berg (born May 31, 1983) is an American fiction writer. She is the author of five works of fiction. Her first two collections of short stories were each shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, in 2010 an ...

Lindsay Hunter Lindsay may refer to: People *Clan Lindsay, a Scottish family clan *Lindsay (name), an English surname and given name, derived from the Scottish clan name; variants include Lindsey, Lyndsay, Linsay, Linsey, Lyndsey, Lyndsy, Lynsay, Lynsey Places ...

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 honor ...

Alissa Nutting Alissa Nutting (born 1980 or 1981) is an American author, creative writing professor and television writer. Her writing has appeared in ''Tin House'', ''Fence'', ''BOMB'' and the fairy tale anthology ''My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me ...

Andrew Holleran Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber (born 1944), an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Florid ...

Lauren Groff Lauren Groff (born July 23, 1978) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including '' Delicate Edible Birds'' (2009), '' Fates and Furies'' (2015), ''Matrix'' (2022), and '' ...

, Diana Abu-Jaber,

Sarah Gerard Sarah Gerard is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction. She worked for Bomb Magazine. She is the author of three books. The first, a novel, ''Binary Star'', was published in 2015 by Two Dollar Radio. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Ti ...

, and

Jeff VanderMeer Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Series. The se ...

. * "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 ficti ...

'' and

XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses * "Ghosts" in ''The Kenyon Review'' (received Special Mention in

XL: Best of the Small Presses, and Notable Story in '' The Best American Nonrequired Reading'' 2014)
"December"
in ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

'', 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 The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...

in Nonfiction for Ordinary Girls * 2020

Florida Book Awards The Florida Book Awards are a set of annual statewide literary awards that recognize Floridian authors and books about Florida published in the previous year. Established in 2006, the awards are administered by the Florida State University Librarie ...

Gold Medal for Ordinary Girls * 2020

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary Foundation, Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literatur ...

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

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

for "Section 8"

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Díaz, Jaquira American essayists 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 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 LGBTQ writers People from Humacao, Puerto Rico Columbia University faculty 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 Lambda Literary Award winners