5 Things You Didn't Know About Junot Diaz

1. Diaz published his first collection of short fiction, Drown in 1996,  but didn't publish his next work until 2007. That book, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, would eventually go on to win the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.

2. In 2007, Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat selected Diaz' story 'How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)' to read on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Two years later, Diaz returned the favour, selecting her story 'Water Child' on the same program.

3. When stuck on a particular passage of a work-in-progress, he shuts himself in the bathroom and perches on the edge of the tub with his notebook.

4.  Diaz, a graduate of the MFA program at Cornell University, recently fired a broadside at MFA programs as part of an introductory essay to a new writing collection, Dismantle: An Anthology From the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop. Among other things, he claimed the bias of MFA programs was 'too white'. (An abridged version of the essay is available here.)

5. Junot Diaz is a fan of comic books in general, and a lifetime fan of Love and Rockets illustrator Jaime Hernandez. After the publication of Diaz' second collection of short fiction, This is How You Lose Her, they decided to work together on a deluxe edition, incorporating Hernandez' illustrations with Diaz' prose. The results were outstanding, at least in this writer's humble opinion.

Read More: My earlier review of 'Fiesta, 1980' from Diaz' debut collection, Drown, which, even now, I recommend often to friends in search of really good short fiction.