Jaquira Díaz

{{Infobox writer

| name = Jaquira Diaz

| image = Jaquira Diaz 2019 Texas Book Festival.jpg

| caption = Díaz at the 2019 Texas Book Festival

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| birth_place = Humacao, Puerto Rico

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| education = University of Central Florida
University of South Florida

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| notableworks =

| occupation = Writer

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| genre = Memoir, Essay, Fiction, Journalism

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| awards = Whiting Award, Florida Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Jeanne Córdova Prize

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| spouse = {{marriage|Lars Horn|2020}}

}}

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, Time (magazine), The Best American Essays, Tin House, The Sun, The Fader, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Longreads, {{cite news|last1=Ruiz|first1=Matthew Ismael|title=15 Latinx Music Journalists You Should Be Reading|url=http://remezcla.com/lists/music/latinx-music-writers/|accessdate=16 December 2017|work=Remezcla|date=16 October 2017}}. She was an editor at the Kenyon Review and a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.{{cite news|title=Kenyon Review Newsletter, September 2018|url=https://www.kenyonreview.org/newsletter/september-2018/|accessdate=5 November 2018|work=Kenyon Review|date=1 September 2018}} 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.{{cite news|title=Black Mountain Institute Announces 2022-23 Fellows|url=https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/black-mountain-institute-announces-2022-23-fellows|accessdate=26 September 2022|work=University of Nevada, Las Vegas|date=12 September 2022}} Díaz lives in New York with her spouse, British writer Lars Horn, and is an assistant professor of writing at Columbia University.{{Cite web |title=Jaquira Díaz |url=https://blackmountaininstitute.org/fellow/jaquira-diaz/ |access-date=2022-09-27 |website=Black Mountain Institute |date=15 August 2022 |language=en-US}}

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.{{cite news|last1=MacCauley|first1=Jennifer Maritza|title=Life, Story, Action: Jaquira Díaz|url=http://www.originsjournal.com/women-writers-caribbean/2016/3/5/jaquira-diaz|accessdate=16 December 2017|work=Origins|date=5 March 2016}} When she was older, her family moved to Miami after rotating between Humacao and Fajardo.{{Cite web |last=Inskeep |first=Steve |date=October 29, 2019 |title=In New Memoir 'Ordinary Girls,' Jaquira Díaz Searches For Home |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/10/29/774306278/jaquira-d-az-on-her-memoir-ordinary-girls#:~:text=World-,Jaquira%20Diaz's%20Memoir%20'Ordinary%20Girls'%20Is%20A%20Story%20Of%20Family,mother%20was%20diagnosed%20as%20schizophrenic. |access-date=October 29, 2024 |website=In New Memoir 'Ordinary Girls,' Jaquira Díaz Searches For Home}} Growing up in Miami Beach during what she describes as the city's "urban blight,"{{cite news|title=Ask a Local: Jaquira Díaz, Miami Beach, FL|url=https://www.thecommononline.org/ask-a-local-jaquira-diaz-miami-beach-fl/|accessdate=17 December 2017|work=The Common|date=30 July 2015}}{{cite news|last1=Martinez|first1=Nicole|title=15 Views of Miami, as told by Jaquira Díaz|url=https://thenewtropic.com/15-views-of-miami-jaquira-diaz/|accessdate=11 January 2018|work=The New Tropic|date=17 September 2015}} she had a difficult life, marked by drug use, attempts at suicide, and encounters with the law.{{cite news|title=The Kenyon Review Conversations: Jaquira Díaz|url=https://www.kenyonreview.org/conversation/jaquira-diaz-2/|accessdate=17 December 2017|work=The Kenyon Review|date=1 November 2015}} Díaz contributes some of her identity issues to being what she describes as "a closeted queer girl"{{Citation |title=Seriously Entertaining: Jaquira Díaz on "Other Side of Reason" | date=February 2021 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2DGP4Q9IWQ |language=en |access-date=2023-02-16}} 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 and whom she describes as a lover of poetry and literature, became a drug dealer in order to support the family.{{cite news|last1=Philyaw|first1=Deesha|title=VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Jaquira Díaz|url=http://therumpus.net/2016/08/visible-women-writers-of-color-4-jaquira-diaz/|accessdate=16 December 2017}} 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. {{Cite web |title=Jaquira Diaz on place, Ana Maria Cardona, and her memoir, Ordinary Girls – Apogee Journal |url=https://apogeejournal.org/2019/11/18/jaquira-diaz-memoir-ordinary-girls/ |access-date=2024-11-11 |language=en-US}} {{Cite web |date=2019-10-29 |title="Either Hyper-Visible or Invisible": An Interview with Jaquira Díaz |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/either-hyper-visible-or-invisible-an-interview-with-jaquira-diaz/ |access-date=2024-10-29 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books}}

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.{{cite news|last1=Philyaw|first1=Deesha|title=VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Jaquira Díaz|url=http://therumpus.net/2016/08/visible-women-writers-of-color-4-jaquira-diaz/|accessdate=16 December 2017|work=The Rumpus|date=17 August 2016}} 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.{{cite news|last1=Peña|first1=Daniel|title=Las Damas: The New Generation of Latina Writers|url=http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/las-damas-the-new-generation-of-latina-writers/|work=Ploughshares|accessdate=16 December 2017}} In 2017, Los Angeles Times critic Walton Muyumba listed Díaz as "part of a necessary cipher of extremely gifted freestylers" that includes writers Ta-Nehisi Coates, Isabel Wilkerson, Carol Anderson, Claudia Rankine, Terrance Hayes, Kiese Laymon, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Junot Díaz, and Jelani Cobb,{{cite news|last1=Muyumba|first1=Walton|title=Ta-Nehisi Coates blazes a singular intellectual path in 'We Were Eight Years in Power'|url=https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-ta-nehisi-coates-power-20170929-story.html|access-date=16 December 2017|work=Los Angeles Times|date=29 September 2017}} and she was listed among Remezcla's "15 Latinx Music Journalists You Should be Reading" and was included in NPR's Alt.Latino's Favorites: The Songs of 2017, as one of "the cream of the crop of Latinx music writers."{{cite news|last1=Contreras|first1=Felix|title=Alt.Latino's Favorites: The Songs of 2017 |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2017/12/21/567803247/alt-latinos-favorites-the-songs-of-2017|accessdate=23 December 2017|work=NPR.org (Alt.Latino)|date=21 December 2017}} In 2018, Electric Literature'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."{{cite web|url=https://electricliterature.com/16-puerto-rican-women-and-non-binary-writers-telling-new-stories-623fb93e0018|author=Rodriguez, Ivelisse|title=16 Puerto Rican Women and No-binary Writers Telling New Stories|website=Electric Literature|date=August 15, 2018}}

Díaz holds a B.A. from the University of Central Florida and an M.F.A. from the University of South Florida, and has been the recipient of fellowships from The Kenyon Review, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The MacDowell Colony, the Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and an NEA Distinguished Fellowship from the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kenyonreview.org/programs/fellowship/history/|title=The Kenyon Review Fellowships History|website=Kenyon Review|access-date=2017-12-16}} In 2022, she was awarded a Shearing Fellowship from the Berverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI).{{Cite web |date=2022-09-09 |title=Black Mountain Institute Announces 2022–23 Fellows |url=https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/black-mountain-institute-announces-2022-23-fellows |access-date=2022-09-27 |website=University of Nevada, Las Vegas |language=en}}

In May 2018, Díaz announced that she had signed a two-book deal with Algonquin Books;{{Cite web|url=https://twitter.com/jaquiradiaz/status/999032819497295872|title=For the last ten years, I've been writing a book about girls. A few months ago, my fierce and wonderful agent, @michellebrower said, "Tell me your dreams, and I will work to make them come true." And then she did. I can't wait to share this book with you.|last=Díaz|first=Jaquira|date=22 May 2018|publisher=Twitter|access-date=2018-11-07}} 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.{{Cite book |last=Díaz |first=Jaquira |title=Ordinary girls: a memoir |date=2019 |publisher=Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill |isbn=978-1-61620-913-1 |edition=First |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Borich |first=Barrie Jean |date=2020-11-17 |title="Love You Back to Life," an Interview with Jaquira Díaz |url=https://www.slagglasscity.org/urban-folios/the-slag-glass-interview/love-you-back-to-life-an-interview-with-jaquira-diaz/ |access-date=2024-12-05 |website=SLAG GLASS CITY |language=en-US}} Her second book, I am Deliberate, will be a novel.{{cite web|url=https://kenyoncollegian.com/arts/2016/09/meet-the-new-kr-fellows-margaree-little-and-jaquira-diaz/|author=Musgrave-Johnson, Devon|title=Meet the New KR Fellows, Margaree Little and Jaquira Diaz|website=Kenyon Collegian|date=September 15, 2016}}{{cite web|url=https://electricliterature.com/16-puerto-rican-women-and-non-binary-writers-telling-new-stories-623fb93e0018|author=Rodriguez, Ivelisse|title=16 Puerto Rican and Non-binary Writers Telling New Stories|website=Electric Literature|date=August 15, 2018}}

Díaz teaches in the writing program at Columbia University School of the Arts.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

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."{{Cite web |last=Inskeep |first=Steve |date=19 October 2019 |title=In New Memoir 'Ordinary Girls,' Jaquira Díaz Searches For Home |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/10/29/774306278/jaquira-d-az-on-her-memoir-ordinary-girls#:~:text=Trump's%20Terms-,Jaquira%20Diaz's%20Memoir%20'Ordinary%20Girls'%20Is%20A%20Story%20Of%20Family,thought%20everyone%20lived%20like%20this.%22 |website=NPR.org}} 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

Ordinary Girls

= Memoirs =

Ordinary Girls (October 2019) {{ISBN|978-1616209131}}

= Essays =

[https://www.kenyonreview.org/journal/novdec-2015/selections/jaquira-diaz/ "Ordinary Girls"] in The Kenyon Review and The Best American Essays 2016
"Girl Hood: On (Not) Finding Yourself in Books" in Her Kind, reprinted in Waveform: Twenty-first Century Essays by Women (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2014)
[https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/464/my-mother-and-mercy "My Mother and Mercy"] in The Sun (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2015)
[http://brevitymag.com/nonfiction/beach-city/ "Beach City"] in Brevity and in Pushcart Prize XLII: Best of the Small Presses
[https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/431/baby-lollipops "Baby Lollipops"] in The Sun (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2012)
"Monster Story" in Ninth Letter (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2017)
[https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/memory-written-rewritten-adriana-paramos-mothers-funeral/ "How Memory is Written and Rewritten: On Adriana Paramo's My Mother's Funeral"] in the Los Angeles Review of Books
[http://tinhouse.com/girls-monsters/ "Girls, Monsters"] in Tin House (Reprinted in Best American Experimental Writing 2020).
[https://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/resistance-change-survival/selections/jaquira-diaz-656342/ "You Do Not Belong Here"] in the Kenyon Review Online (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2018).
[https://longreads.com/2018/06/25/la-otra/ "La Otra"] in Longreads (Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2019).

= Short stories =

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/t-magazine/florida-fairy-tale.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ft-magazine&action=click&contentCollection=t-magazine®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront "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, Alissa Nutting, Andrew Holleran, Lauren Groff, Diana Abu-Jaber, Sarah Gerard, and Jeff VanderMeer.
"Section 8" in The Southern Review 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 2014)
[https://www.salon.com/2013/12/25/two_sentence_holiday_fiction_amazing_short_short_stories_from_amazing_writers/ "December"] in Salon, as part of the Two-sentence Holiday Fiction feature

= Other work =

[http://www.thefader.com/2017/07/13/kali-uchis-cover-story-album-tyrant-interview "Who Is the Real Kali Uchis?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190202223601/http://www.thefader.com/2017/07/13/kali-uchis-cover-story-album-tyrant-interview |date=2019-02-02 }} in The Fader{{Dead link|date=June 2023}}
[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-baby-lollipops-murder-case-that-shook-south-florida-w460164 "Inside the Brutal Baby Lollipops Murder Case that Shook South Florida"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215110010/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-baby-lollipops-murder-case-that-shook-south-florida-w460164 |date=2017-12-15 }} in Rolling Stone
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/10/puerto-rico-last-political-prisoner-oscar-lopez-rivera "Puerto Rico's Last Political Prisoner"] in The Guardian
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/rescue-dead-dog-beach-puerto-rico "Rescue From Dead Dog Beach"] in The Guardian 26 October 2015

Awards and honors

2023 Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction{{cite web|url=https://lambdaliterary.org/2023/06/jaquira-diaz-wins-2023-jeanne-cordova-prize-for-lesbian-queer-nonfiction/|title=Jaquira Díaz Wins 2023 Jeanne Córdova Prize in Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction|publisher=Lambda Literary|date=7 June 2023|accessdate=7 June 2023}}
2023 Shearing Fellowship{{cite web|url=https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/black-mountain-institute-announces-2022-23-fellows|title=Black Mountain Institute Announces 2022-2023 Fellows|publisher=Black Mountain Institute at UNLV|date=20 September 2022|accessdate=7 June 2023}}
2022 Alonzo Davis Fellowship{{cite web|url=https://www.vcca.com/jaquira-diaz-awarded-2022-alonzo-davis-fellowship/|title=Jaquira Díaz Awarded 2022 Alonzo Davis Fellowship|publisher=VCCA|date=15 Nov 2022|accessdate=7 June 2023}}
2020 Whiting Award in Nonfiction for Ordinary Girls
2020 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Ordinary Girls{{cite web|url=https://www.tampabay.com/arts-entertainment/arts/books/2020/03/05/paul-wilborn-takes-a-gold-medal-in-florida-book-awards//2017/announcement|title=Paul Wilborn Takes Gold Medal in Florida Book Awards|publisher=Tampa Bay Times|date=5 March 2020|accessdate=12 March 2020}}{{dead link|date=July 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
2020 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Lesbian Memoir for Ordinary Girls{{cite web|url=https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/books/a31261320/lambda-literary-awards-finalists-2020/|title=These Are The Finalists for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards|publisher=The Oprah Magazine|date=10 March 2020|accessdate=12 March 2020}}
2019 Discover Prize Finalist, Ordinary Girls{{cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/82305-adam-young-win-b-n-2019-discover-new-writers-awards.html|title=Adam, Young Win B&N Discover Awards|publisher=Publishers Weekly|date=31 January 2020|accessdate=22 March 2020}}
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 for "Carraízo{{cite web|url=https://internationalliteraryawards.org/2017/announcement|title=2017 International Literary Award Winners|publisher=The Center for Women Writers|date=1 August 2017|accessdate=16 December 2017}}
2016 The Krause Essay Prize Finalist for "Ordinary Girls"{{cite web|url=http://essayprize.org/past-nominees/2016-2/|title=The Essay Prize 2016 Nominees|publisher=The Essay Prize|date=1 October 2016|accessdate=1 December 2017|archive-date=2 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180602032817/http://essayprize.org/past-nominees/2016-2/|url-status=dead}}
2014 Summer Literary Seminars Award in Nonfiction for "Ordinary Girls"
2012 Pushcart Prize for "Section 8"