Lucas Díaz

Lucas Díaz-Medina (appearing as Lucas Díaz in non-fiction work) is a Dominican-born immigrant who has lived in New Orleans since arriving there with his family as a child in the late 70s. He's a father of three who has explored a plethora of careers while working on his craft in and around the New Orleans area. His 2007 self-published short-story collection titled Passing Unseen: Stories from New Domangue marks his first real foray into sharing his work outside his immediate circle. All of Lucas' fiction is set in New Domangue, a fictional place south of New Orleans.

Lucas completed his MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop in 2003. Most of his life, Lucas worked odd jobs. In 2000, he used his BA in English and Writing to land his first "career" job as a fundraising writer. From 2000 onward, Lucas has worked in the non-profit sector as a fundraiser, a co-founder of a Latinx-serving non-profit organization in the New Orleans area, a city bureaucrat who launched the city of New Orleans' first-ever neighborhood engagement office, and a civic leadership educator, strategist, and researcher. In 2022, Lucas completed his PhD in sociology, which he now uses to advance an artist-academic-practitioner approach to his work in civic leadership.

Among all the odd jobs he held before 2000, Lucas likes to share with people that he was once a nursing student who worked the night shift in an emergency room before he quit to focus on the writing craft. A stint in the Naval Reserves landed him in active duty in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, serving six months on the frontline as a Hospital Corpsman attached to Marine Infantry when he was too young to know anything.