Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Her life and what she did
Early life and Background
Born in 1969, in Albuquerque, NM; daughter of Nelson P. Valdes (a sociologist) and Maxine Conant and married Patrick Rodriguez (a writer), 1999; children: Alexander. Education: Graduated from the Berklee College of Music, c. 1991; Columbia University, M.A. (journalism),1994
Her career
She was a reporter for the , Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, features editor, and Film rights to The Dirty Girls Social Club were optioned by Jennifer Lopez and Columbia Pictures
Struggles
Valdes-Rodriguez had a difficult time finding another job in journalism thanks to that letter. She scraped by, doing freelance public-relations work for Hispanic entertainers, and had to rely on Medicaid to cover the cost of her son's delivery. But when she submitted a proposal for a nonfiction book about Hispanic pop divas, the editors who read it asked if she had written any fiction instead.
Quotes
1: "There's a part of me that wants to vomit to be called a Latina writer,"
2: "So much of what's written in English about Latinas is about us being downtrodden and struggling. I wanted to have fun."
2: "So much of what's written in English about Latinas is about us being downtrodden and struggling. I wanted to have fun."
3 : "At newspapers there was always this sort of, 'we need someone to go cover this story who speaks Spanish, can you go?'"
Sources or Periodicals
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 23, 2003.
Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2002.
Cosmopolitan, May 2003.
Daily Telegraph (London, England), August 13, 2003.
Detroit Free Press, May 11, 2003.
Entertainment Weekly, May 16, 2003.
Houston Chronicle, September 27, 2004.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 14, 2003.
Library Journal, August 2004.
Miami Herald, May 2, 2003.
New York Times, April 24, 2003.
Publishers Weekly, April 14, 2003; July 7, 2003; August 30, 2004
Rocky Mountain News, June 5, 2003, p. 8D.