Liza Monroy

Liza Monroy
Born	Liza Gennatiempo (1979-11-12) November 12, 1979 (age 45) Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist, memoirist, essayist, journalist, educator
Education	Emerson 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

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

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

• 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

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. 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.

External links

• Official website