Interview with
jose hernandez diaz By: nicole tallman
Who is Jose Hernandez Diaz? What is it about your life that created the author today? I grew up in Northern Orange County/Southeast LA County border: back and forth. Grew up low-income, first-gen Mexican American. I was encouraged to write in high school by influential teachers: Mrs. Weir and Mrs. HoweUgale. A mixture of working-class, middle-class environments guided my work/upbringing, although we were always poor. Also, a mixture of cultures and subcultures in Southern California guided me/my aesthetic: Mexican, Mexican American, American, counterculture, etc.
What does your writing process look like? Do you have a particular schedule, habits, or process? I tend to write early in the morning. Sometimes with a coffee, sometimes before the coffee. I tend to write 1-3, sometimes 5 poems at a time, rarely more than that. Last poetry month in April, I wrote a poem every day for the first time. Loved it. I sometimes write in different series of prose poems: for example: The Man in the Pink Floyd Shirt, jaguar prose poems, skeleton prose poems, The Man in the Chicano Batman Shirt, etc.
What is your chosen genre and why does it still speak to you? I write poetry and prose poetry. For a while I also wrote flash fiction but found the genre very white and difficult to break into. Poetry and prose poetry still very much speak to me. I believe they will my whole life. It is like religion to me. The immediacy of it. The connection and opportunity for growth and creativity.
You are an editor of several literary publications. Tell us about those and how they fit into your life. I’m an Associate Editor at Frontier Poetry and Guest Editor at Palette Poetry. As an Associate Editor with Frontier, I’m working more in the everyday matters of the magazine: submissions, emails, posts, etc. As a Guest Editor with Palette, I’m dealing more exclusively with feedback letters, which are designed to help writers improve their writing. As far as how it fits into my life, I also work on other freelance projects, am applying for PhD programs in creative writing, and teaching writing online. I also like to hang out with my dog, Rufio, and watch LA sports: Lakers, Dodgers, Rams, LAFC, or any sport.
In addition to writing and editing, you also teach poetry. Tell us how teaching fits into your life and what you enjoy most about it. I will begin teaching a prose poetry course this spring during poetry month: April 2021. Teaching is new to me. However, editing with literary magazines, more specifically the feedback letters, has taught me a lot about craft and form/line, imagery, etc., which is useful in the teaching of creative writing. Also, I’ve probably done like 10-15 poetry readings on Zoom, so that has helped familiarize me with the online theatre of poetry.
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