Ordinary Girls

Jaquira Díaz is a Puerto Rican writer born in Puerto Rico and raised between Humacao, Fajardo, and Miami Beach, facing challenges including poverty, drug use, suicide attempts, and identity issues as a queer Afro-Latina in housing projects and urban blight areas. She is the author of the award-winning memoir Ordinary Girls (2019), which received a Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, and was a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, among other honors. Her work has appeared in major publications like The Atlantic and The Guardian, and she teaches as an assistant professor at Columbia University; she is alive with a forthcoming novel, This Is the Only Kingdom.