How Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Hernan Diaz Writes: Redux

The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

NOTE: This is an updated replay of an amazing chat I had with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Hernan Diaz, who spoke to me exactly one year ago about rejection, his unusual path to literary stardom, subverting reader expectations, and his latest novel TRUST.

A big congrats to Hernan who recently won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

His novel, Trust, shared the Pulitzer Books prize with Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, Demon Copperhead. Trust was named one of 2022’s Most Anticipated Books by The New York Times, OprahDaily, The Today Show, Vogue, Vulture, AV Club, and many others.

Described as "...an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle .... about money, power, intimacy, and perception," The NY Times called Trust, “Intricate, cunning and consistently surprising ..."

Hernan was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and his first novel, In the Distance, won the Saroyan International Prize, the Cabell Award, the Prix Page America, and the New American Voices Award, among other distinctions. He holds a Ph.D. from NYU, edits an academic journal at Columbia University, and his stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Playboy, The Yale Review, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere.

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In this file Hernan Diaz and I discussed:

• Why the path to publication is a Catch-22 for authors
• The lonely road to Pulitzer Nominee and the disorientation of fame
• What he learned from Jorge Luis Borges
• Re-mapping the isthmus of referential reality
• How he unlearned academic writing
• And a lot more!

Show Notes:

• hernandiaz.net
• Trust by Hernan Diaz (Amazon Affiliate)
• Hernan Diaz Amazon Author Page (Amazon Affiliate)
• Pulitzer Prizes 2023: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists - NY Times
• Kelton Reid on Twitter

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