Six Simple Questions With Junot Diaz

Welcome to Six Simple Questions With...

This is the fourth post in a series aimed at providing insight and knowledge to readers and aspiring authors alike.

Previous guests include Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner and "The New Yorker 20 Under 40" author Philipp Meyer, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin.

Today's guest is Junot Diaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

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What do you need to know about Junot Diaz before you read his thoughts on writing?

Well, he teaches writing at MIT. And he's won a bunch of prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. If you can't learn about writing from him, it's unlikely you'll learn about writing from anyone!

On my book tour, I had the opportunity to gather a number of horror stories from people who had met authors who turned out to be just plain full-of-themselves-nasty in person. On the other hand, I did a book signing at a bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts that Junot Diaz frequents. And the people at the store told me about how he goes in there all the time, and hangs out in other parts of Cambridge, and watches people and interacts with people and is just a regular dude.

That has nothing to do with his thoughts on writing, but it is something every author and aspiring author can learn from.

Oh yeah, and there are other things you can learn from him as well…

Here Are Six Simple Questions
with Junot Diaz:

1) Do you write each day, or do you write "when the mood strikes"?

Each day AND when the mood strikes. It rarely works though. For some reason I am not an industrial type writer, despite all my attempts to force myself to be one. I work every day and yet I produce like one of those writers who writes only when the mood strikes, which is to say very little.


2) Do you have a "writing spot," or do you move around?

I'm boring in this; I tend to write at home. I've tried to write in public but I'm too undisciplined. I love the world too much and always prefer it to my words so I need to keep myself blinkered from it if I expect to get anything done.


3) What is the one book (written by someone else) you wish you had written yourself?

One book? How about three. A Small Island by Andrea Levy. Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco. And Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman because it is the bravest and most heartfelt book currently in bookstores. It happens to be brilliant too.


4) What is the one book you feel every aspiring author should read?

Again one book? I just think every aspiring writer should read one book a week if they really want to be writers and not just people who want to be read.


5) What is the best writing advice you have ever heard/read?

Spend more time reading than writing.


6) What is the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

Don't listen to me.

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"...every aspiring writer should read one book a week if they really want to be writers and not just people who want to be read."

Check out Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winner,
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao


[And be sure to check out the other Six Simple Question posts as well.]

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