{"id":107879,"date":"2020-03-26T16:46:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=107879"},"modified":"2020-03-26T16:46:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:46:35","slug":"ucf-alum-wins-whiting-award-50000-as-an-emerging-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-alum-wins-whiting-award-50000-as-an-emerging-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"麻豆原创 Alum Wins Whiting Award, $50,000 as an Emerging Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

麻豆原创 English <\/a>graduate Jaquira D\u00edaz \u201906 was named Wednesday as one of the 10 winners of the 2020 Whiting Award for emerging writers, earning her a $50,000 prize. Her debut memoir, Ordinary Girls<\/em>, is about her challenging childhood growing up in the projects of Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, and her coming of age.<\/p>\n

Judges for the award, presented by the Whiting Foundation, say the book is \u201cpacked with indelible images of violence and tenderness that evoke landscapes and neighborhoods, families and strangers.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Whiting Award is based on early-career achievement and the promise of literary work to come. Her book was declared one of the must-read books of 2019 by O, The Oprah Magazine<\/em>; Time<\/em>; Publishers Weekly and others.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz, who now splits her time between Miami and Montreal, says that when she started taking creative writing courses at 麻豆原创 that she knew she would become a writer one day, and that her most important lesson in school was: \u201cI learned to call myself a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t know how, or when, but I saw it as a dream that would eventually come true, because I would never stop working for it,\u201d she says. \u201cI learned discipline, drive, focus. I learned not to wait for inspiration, to keep writing, keep reading, keep learning. Eventually, I was confident enough to call myself a writer, and that changed everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says all of her 麻豆原创 professors were supportive, especially recalling the direction of Cecilia Rodr\u00edguez-Milan\u00e9s, Terry Thaxton, Jocelyn Bartkevicius and Kathleen Bell.<\/p>\n

\u2018They (instructors) made me feel seen, like they understood my vision, like they believed in my work.\u2019 \u2013 Jaquira D\u00edaz<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThey made me feel seen, like they understood my vision, like they believed in my work,\u201d she says. \u201cHonestly, even though it wasn\u2019t my best work at the time\u2014I was an undergrad, all ambition and drive and bravado\u2014they helped me see that what I wanted would take hard work, and time, but that it was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

For other students who want to go into writing, her advice would be: \u201cRead. Read. Read. Then write.\u201d <\/p>\n

D\u00edaz, also a former visiting assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s MFA program in creative writing, won her Whiting Award for nonfiction, but she says her next project is a novel. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo be a writer, to be successful, you have to want this more than anything else in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cGet used to the idea that \u2018success\u2019 might mean you have to work another job to pay the bills. Get used to the idea that you will spend the rest of your life learning. Learning doesn’t stop when you get your degree, when you leave college or grad school. That’s just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jaquira D\u00edaz \u201906<\/strong> recalls her most important lesson at 麻豆原创: \u2018I learned to call myself a writer.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":107881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[15992,3,5,6],"tags":[17023,11238],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-107879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-arts","category-colleges","category-community","tag-college-of-arts-and-humanities","tag-department-of-english"],"yoast_head":"\n麻豆原创 Alum Wins Whiting Award, $50,000 as an Emerging Writer | 麻豆原创 News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jaquira D\u00edaz \u201906 recalls her most important lesson at 麻豆原创: \u2018I learned to call myself a 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