Alisa valdes rodriguez biography of michael

American writer (born )

Alisa Valdes
Valdes in Mexico, August
Born	() February 28, (age&#;55) Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist, journalist
Genre	Women's commercial fiction&#;/&#;Chick lit; young adult
Spouse	Patrick Rodriguez &#; &#; (m.&#;; div.&#;)&#;
Children	1

Alisa Valdes (born in Albuquerque, Recent Mexico) is an American storyteller, journalist, and film producer, famous for her bestselling novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Early life

Valdes was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico.^[1] Her father, Nelson Valdés, is a retired sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and emigrated from Cuba in the early s.^[2] Her mother, Maxine Conant, is a seventh-generation New Mexican of mixed heritage, including Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese Jewish, Puebloan, and Irish ancestry,^[3] and is a descendant of Roger Conant, founder of Salem, Massachusetts, and Vermont revolutionary Ethan Allen.^{[4][citation needed]}

Valdes spent her childhood primarily in New Mexico, but also lived briefly in Glasgow, Scotland and New Orleans.

Valdes a sociologist and Maxine Conant a poet ; married; husband's name Patrick; children: Alexander. Education: Berklee College of Song, graduated, c. Hobbies and other interests: Playing tenor sax. Home— New Mexico.

Upon her graduation from Del Norte High Academy in Albuquerque she attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where she majored in jazz performance on the tenor saxophone.^[5]

Journalism career

While a student at Berklee, Valdes began writing freelance song reviews for The Boston Globe.

After graduating from Berklee in , she took an unpaid internship at the Village Voice, before going back to university to earn a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in ^[5]

Valdes joined the staff of The Boston Globe in , where she wrote for the Living/Arts section.

Her essay for The Boston Globe Magazine, "Daughter of Cuba," won first place in the SUNMAG essay contest.^[6] In , Valdes left Boston for a position as staff penner in the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times. Her articles have appeared in dozens of newspapers, and she has written cover stories for Glamour and Redbook.^[7]

Valdes continues to function in journalism, writing a weekly parenting column for the website "Mamiverse",^[8] an opinion piece for NBC Latino,^[9] a travel piece for London newspaper The Guardian,^[10] and contributing posts for The Huffington Post Books section.^[11]

Literary career

Her first novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, was purchased by St.

Martin's Press a small more than a year after she left the Los Angeles Times. She was paid an advance of $, after five publishing houses bid for the manuscript.^[12][13] In a profile of the writer, entitled "The Latina Terry McMillan?", Chicago Tribune whistleblower Patrick T.

Reardon wrote: "What made [the book] especially scorching was the belief among publishers that Valdes-Rodriguez could be the long-sought 'Latina Terry McMillan' -- a writer whose work would jump-start Hispanic book buying in the U.S.

and create a new profitable publishing niche" The Dirty Girls Social Club garnered media attention and went on to become a New York Times bestseller and a Booksense 76 top pick.^[14]

Valdes has since written twelve novels: Playing With Boys in ; Make Him Look Good in ; a young adult novel, Haters, in ; Dirty Girls on Top, a sequel to The Soiled Girls Social Club, in , The Husband Habit in , and The Three Kings in , All That Glitters in , Lauren's Saints of Stained Faith in , The Temptation in , Puta in , The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil in , and the concise romance ebooks Billy, the Man; A Better Love Than Husband, and Forgive Me My Sins, all in

Valdes wrote a memoir, The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story, published in The book detailed her relationship with a conservative ranch hand and how it led her to rethink some of her feminist beliefs.

Valdes a sociologist and Maxine Conant a poet ; husband's designate Patrick divorced ; children: Alexander. Education: Berklee College of Melody, graduated, c. Hobbies and other interests: Playing tenor sax. E-mail — [email protected].

After its publication, Valdes alleged that the relationship was abusive.^[15][16]

In , Time dubbed Valdes "The Godmother of Chica Lit" and named her one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the Joined States.

Hispanic Business Magazine has twice named her among the Most Influential Hispanics in America. In , the Hispanic Congressional Caucus awarded Valdes with a Latina Leadership award, and she participated in the National Manual Festival at the Library of Congress.

She also received the Theatre of Hearts "Youth First" award in Los Angeles in ^[17]

Film career

Before its publication in , the film rights to The Dirty Girls Social Club were optioned by Columbia Pictures with Jennifer Lopez and Laura Ziskin as producers,^[2] but the option expired without going into production.

Valdes-Rodriguez's career trajectory from journalist to author was not her first foray into the creative professions. Born in in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she was a talented tenor saxophonist in her teens, and graduated from Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music.

The Lifetime Television network then began to develop the book as a television series. The project did not progress beyond development. Valdes next partnered with Nely Galán's Cienfuegos Films company, to make an independent film based upon the novel, with Valdes, Galán and Debra Martin Chase as executive producers and Valdes as creator and screenwriter, but the deal never came to pass.^[18]

Ann Lopez, ex-wife of comedian George Lopez, optioned The Dirty Girls Social Club in NBC was developing the novel with Lopez and her company Encanto Productions for the television season.^[19] In December , Valdes publicly accused Ann Lopez and screenplay writer Luisa Leschin of racism and homophobia after reading a draft of their proposed pilot script.^[20] She later retracted some of her statements about Lopez and Leschin, while maintaining her displeasure with the script.^[21] NBC ultimately did not order a pilot of The Dirty Girls Social Club.^[22]

Valdes formed her own production company, Valdes Entertainment Enterprises, in to advance The Dirty Girls Social Club for film.

Valdes teamed up with television producers MarVista Amusement to help produce the film.^[23]

Bibliography

Novels

Novelitas

Anthologies

Memoirs

• The Feminist and the Cowboy ()

See also

References

External links