The Wondrous Junot Diaz (This Is How He Keeps You)
Phot o by Keith Hoo d “These are holy moments, a sacred communion ,” Junot Diaz said as he began his November 11, 2012 talk at Lighthouse Writers* in Denver. He was referring to the brief time he was about to spend with dozens of people crowded into the lower-level grotto of this historic Denver brownstone. “Trust is essential in the teaching process,” Diaz told us. “It usually takes weeks, not just a couple hours.” Of course, the fact that Diaz has not only received a Pulitzer Award for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , but was also just recently awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship , meant we were all pretty much ready to trust his genius, as well as his good intentions. I think the fact that w e trusted him right away might also have had something to do with the affectionate way he held his coffee cup . That’s all we had with him Sunday, though —a little more than a couple of hours. Withi...