Liza Monroy

Liza Monroy
BornLiza Gennatiempo
(1979-11-12) November 12, 1979 (age 44)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
OccupationNovelist, memoirist, essayist, journalist, educator
EducationEmerson College,
Columbia University School of the Arts
Website
www.lizamonroy.com

Liza Monroy (born November 12, 1979; née Liza Gennatiempo) is an American novelist, memoirist, essayist, and educator. Her debut novel, Mexican High (2008), was published by Spiegel and Grau.[1][2]

Early life and education

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Liza Monroy was born in 1979 in Seattle, Washington.[citation needed] Her parents divorced when she was young.[citation needed] Her mother Peggy was American Jewish and had worked for the United States Department of State;[3] and her father was Italian and had worked in the restaurant industry.[4]

She has a BFA degree (2000) from Emerson College;[5] and a MFA degree in non-fiction from Columbia University School of the Arts. She also served as an instructor in the undergraduate writing program at Columbia University School of the Arts.[6]

Career

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Her debut novel Mexican High (2008) is fictional and features a main character named Mila Marquez but the story is loosely based on Monroy's own experiences of living in Mexico City in 1993 and attending an elite private high school.[7]

Monroy released a memoir, The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took To Keep My Best Friend In America And What It Taught Us About Love (Soft Skull Press; 2014) about the three years she spent married to gay Middle Eastern man named Emir (from fictitiously entitled Emirstan) who might otherwise have been deported.[8][9][10] The book The Marriage Act explores human relationships, and addresses the concepts of marriage and love.[11]

Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times,[4] The New York Times Magazine, the L.A. Times, Newsweek, Village Voice, Jane, Self, Bust, and others.

She has served as a member of the Writing faculty at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), and in lives in Santa Cruz, California.[12]

Publications

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  • Monroy, Liza (2008). Mexican High. Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 9780385523592.
  • Monroy, Liza (2010). Keeping you with me (dissertation). Columbia University. OCLC 793808365.
  • Monroy, Liza (2014). The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took to Keep My Best Friend in America, and What It Taught Us About Love. Soft Skull Press. ISBN 9781593765361.
  • Monroy, Liza (2016). Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon to be on Fire: Essays. Soft Skull Press. ISBN 9781593766498.[13]

References

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  1. ^ "Mexican High by Liza Monroy, Spiegel & Grau, $21.95 (334pp) ISBN 978-0-385-52359-2". publishersweekly.com. April 28, 2008. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  2. ^ Kaminski, Margot (2008-06-24). "Fiction review: 'Mexican High' by Liza Monroy". SFGATE. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  3. ^ Carlson, Bob; Dorr, Wendy (2013-02-06). "UnFictional: Cracking the Love Code". KCRW. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  4. ^ a b Monroy, Liza (2006-11-26). "Ciao, Papa". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  5. ^ "Emerson well represented at writing conference". Emerson Today. 2014-03-04. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  6. ^ Liza Monroy: About
  7. ^ "'Passing' Along His Favorites". Wall Street Journal. 2008-06-06. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  8. ^ Carnes, Aaron (12 February 2014). "Liza Monroy Raises Questions About Marriage". SantaCruz.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  9. ^ "The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took to Keep My Best Friend in America, and What It Taught Us About Love by Liza Monroy. Soft Skull (PGW, dist.), $16.95 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-59376-536-1". publishersweekly.com. November 18, 2013. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  10. ^ "The Modern Love Podcast: Malin Akerman Reads 'Elvis and My Husband Have Left the Building'". The New York Times. 2017-03-15. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  11. ^ "What Liza Monroy Proposed". Interview Magazine. 2014-02-11. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  12. ^ "Santa Cruz County Stories: Formerly single writer Liza Monroy mines her own dating history for literature". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 2016-12-18. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  13. ^ "Seeing as Your Shoes Are Soon to Be on Fire: Essays by Liza Monroy. Soft Skull, $16.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-59376-649-8". publishersweekly.com. August 15, 2016. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
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