Natasha Diaz Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Natasha Diaz

Author Natasha Diaz is a producer and a freelance writer. Her essays have been published in the Huffington Post and the Establishment.

Natasha was born in New York and is an eater. She grew up in Manhattan, moving around some after her parents divorced, but spent quite a bit of her childhood and formative years in Harlem.

A fun fact about her is that she has never been behind the wheel of a car and she never will. Another would be that her first word, after ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ was book.

First she worked as a producer, but felt she was making other people’s stories come to life rather than telling her own. She took classes in scriptwriting, since she felt more comfortable with dialogue. Through one of her scripts, she got some representation.

Writing is something that has been infused into her DNA from an early age because her dad is a poet and her mom is a playwright and actor. She always used to write poetry to express herself and took any chance she could to write. Whether it was contributions to the literary journal in high school, the speech for her middle school graduation, or picking an English major. Writing is something that makes her feel whole.

If she could spend more time with a character from “Color Me In”, both in the flesh and on the page, she would pick Stevie. He is a very confident, fun, and exuberant character with a ton of love to give. Natasha also admires his passion for dance and the drive that he goes for it all the time. He is simply unafraid to put himself out there and just be silly and adventurous.

Natasha is the only one on her mother’s side that looks the way she does, and as a result of this, she has seen a lot of blatant racism since she was a kid. It is just none of it was ever directed at her. She has had a lot of microagressions directed at her that has led to some debilitating self-doubt that keeps her from claiming herself entirely.

Most of “Color Me In” is fictionalized but Natasha still pulled from her own experiences and encounters from her own life that formed much of Nevaeh’s journey and the story. All of the characters are fictional, but still inspired by the people in her life, as they have some of the traits of Natasha’s friends and family.

Natasha shares a lot with Nevaeh, but they were still raised in different circumstances and are very different. It made getting into her a bit tough and took some tweaking, and she always had to remind herself that Nevaeh is not Natasha.

She finds that narratives on multiracial/biracial, white-passing characters dive deep into their internal struggle, but they rarely touch on the colorism and privileges that are inherently linked to those that are mixed yet pass as white.

“Color Me In” gave her the opportunity to pen the book that she never had when she was growing up. A story that never detracts in any way from the right mixed-race people have to their own identity and still acknowledges the privileges of being white.

Despite Nevaeh’s sixteenth birthday playing a big role in the novel, Natasha does not really remember what she did on hers. She thinks she hung out with her boyfriend at the time. Natasha only knows for sure that she did not have a sweet sixteen party.

She picked that age out for Nevaeh since she was growing up, she thought that sixteen was the gateway to almost adulthood. You are halfway done with high school, social life makes the switch from slumber parties to real parties, and people start having sex. This is a transitional period in everybody’s life, with it all, Nevaeh is dealing with different things. As a result of her complex new life, the chaos during that time just felt appropriate.

She has been a finalist for the Sundance Episodic Story Lab and NALIP Diverse Women in Media Fellowship. Natasha was also a quarter finalist in the Austin Film Festival.

Her debut novel, called “Color Me In”, was released in the year 2019 and is from the genre of young adult fiction.

“Color Me In” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2019. Nevaeh Levitz, sixteen years old, grew up in an affluent part of New York City and never thought too much about her bi-racial roots. Her Jewish father and Black mother split, and she goes to Harlem and her mom’s family home and has to face her identity for real for the very first time.

Neveah would like to get to know this part of her family. This is complicated due to her passing inadvertently as a white woman, her cousin believes she is too selfish, privileged, and pampered to relate to the injustices that African Americans face all of the time. Meanwhile, Nevaeh’s dad makes the decision that she should have a late bat Mitzvah rather than a sweet 16, guaranteeing her social humiliation at her lavish private school. Instead of taking a stand, Nevaeh does what she always does when life gets tough: she keeps quiet.

Only as Nevaeh comes across a secret from her mother’s past, sees the prejudice that her family faces, and finds she is falling in love does she truly see that she has got her own voice. And choices to make. Is she going to continue to allow circumstances dictate the path she is on? Or is she going to choose once and for all just who she is and where she is meant to be?

This is a book that will affect anybody that reads it. It is heartfelt, brilliant, and insightful. It is pretty hard not to feel all of the raw emotions. The writing in this is pure poetry, simply musical and rhythmic and thrummed in some readers’ chests. Natasha navigates through her identity, processes her trauma, comes to grips with her own privilege, and finds a sense of self in the middle of a narrative capable of making you laugh and cry.