Participant Biographies and Project Descriptions
Sue Diaz
Sue is a nationally recognized journalist, having recently been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Her publishing credits include hundreds of essays and articles in regional and national publications such as Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor. Sue holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English and has taught High School English and Adult School. A frequent on-air essayist for National Public Radio, she won the “Year’s Best Radio Diaries” award three years in a row. After her son returned from two tours in Iraq, Sue wrote a series of columns for the Christian Science Monitor about his experiences. These essays won Sue her Pulitzer Prize nomination, and her son’s experiences prompted her to seek an avenue in which to help service men and women returning from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars.
For one year now through the Senior Artist Project (SAP) grant, Sue has conducted writing workshops at the San Diego Veteran’s Center. Her writing workshops have succeeded in giving the veterans a “positive, creative outlet for the energy, angst, and stress that are part of the day-to-day lives of those who’ve come back from places like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.” Sue is expanding her project to include homeless veterans at Veteran’s Village and will continue her work at the San Diego Veteran’ s Center with the support of a second SAP grant. Based on empirical research regarding the therapeutic effect of writing about important personal experiences, Sue, through her workshops, provides returning veterans an environment and creative process for expression, affirmation, and ultimately healing. At the close of each eight-week session, Sue compiles a collection of the participant’s favorite stories into homemade books, which each group member will receive.
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