Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
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Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez (born February 28, 1969 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is an American novelist of Cuban-Irish descent known for her literary works in the Chick-Lit genre, including The Dirty Girls Social Club (2003), Playing with Boys (2004), Make Him Look Good, and Haters (both 2006).
Her father, Nelson Valdés, is a Cuban-American sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, who emigrated from Cuba at a young age. Her mother, Maxine Conant is an Irish-American poet from New Mexico. In August of 1998 she married Patrick Rodriguez. The couple divorced in 2005.
She attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She published an article about sexism at the school in the Boston Globe. About a year after graduation, she entered Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she graduated in 1994.
In 1994 she was hired as a reporter for the Boston Globe. In 1999 she began working for the Los Angeles Times covering the music industry. She has also worked for the Albuquerque Tribune as the newspaper's arts and entertainment editor.
Her first novel, published in 2003, The Dirty Girls Social Club, garnered her almost $500,000 in a book advance from St. Martin's Press after a bidding war. The book reached the New York Times bestseller's list. Her other novels include Playing With Boys, Make Him Look Good, and Haters.
In 2005, Time Magazine dubbed her "The Godmother of Chica Lit" and named her one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States.
In a blog entry from January 2006, Valdes opened up for the first time about her long battle with bulimia, writing, "I was more willing to admit I'd slept with a woman in college and based the lesbian character's love scenes on that than I was able to confess to having an eating disorder. Until now."[citation needed]
