The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, And Neuroscience

NOTE: This is an updated replay of an amazing chat I had with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Hernan Diaz, who spoke to me exactly one year ago about rejection, his unusual path to literary stardom, subverting reader expectations, and his latest novel TRUST. A big congrats to Hernan who recently won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His novel, Trust, shared the Pulitzer Books prize with Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, Demon Copperhead. Trust was named one of 2022’s Most Anticipated Books by The New York Times, OprahDaily, The Today Show, Vogue, Vulture, AV Club, and many others. Described as "...an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle .... about money, power, intimacy, and perception," The NY Times called Trust, “Intricate, cunning and consistently surprising ..." Hernan was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and his first novel, In the Distance, won the Saroyan International Prize, the Cabell Award, the Prix Page America, and the New American Voices Award, among other distinctions. He hold