One of the author websites I read regularly is Junot Díaz’s StoryWorlds. Diaz is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, among other titles, and through his Substack writings he generously shares his ideas about the writing craft with his readers. A recent post, When the Words Become Breath, or A First Novel Written in Darkness, is one of his more personal entries, and it strikes at the heart of the question of why we write, and what we should expect from our efforts.
It’s also a hopeful story for anyone who struggles with depression, as Díaz did during his senior year of high school — “a depression of the deep dark kind.”
Continue reading “Why we write: thoughts from Junot Díaz”
Andy writes! 