From the depths of despair to Pulitzer Prize: One writer’s story
If we didn’t know better, we might read excellent literature and assume that it all flows effortlessly from the writer’s pen.
That “flow state” isn’t the norm for most writers. Some struggling writers become so discouraged they wonder if they’re cut out to be writers. This happened to Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz when he wrote his first novel. He was stalled. He agonized over his pages. Still, he kept at it for five years. Then he became so discouraged and burned out that he considered another career. But he dug out his manuscript and started in again. He finally published his novel a decade after he first began writing it.
Díaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. It was named #1 Fiction Book of the Year” by Time magazine and spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, establishing itself – with more than a million copies in print – as a modern classic. Read more
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