tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-151118032008-10-11T10:10:52.026-07:00Official blog of novelist, screenwriter and journalist Alisa Valdes-RodriguezAlisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comBlogger459125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-49437576276667538342008-10-11T10:07:00.002-07:002008-10-11T10:10:52.037-07:00

I'll be "runnin' my mouth" in Denver on Monday, as my ever-supportive mom used to say. If you're around, come hang out for a while. University of Denver Oct. 13 6 p.m. Latino Heritage Month Keynote talk and book signing Graduate School of Social Work, Craig Hall 2148 S. High Street Denver, CO 80208

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-22646172821644447652008-10-10T09:31:00.002-07:002008-10-10T09:33:37.613-07:00

I greatly admire the work of Nicole Betancourt. Today I wrote to her in hopes of getting her on board as the Director of Photography for my film, "The Dirty Girls Social Club". Fingers crossed! I'm off to AZ to start fundraising for the movie. I'll be back tonight. Mientras tanto, bailen.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-45178666205251407492008-10-09T13:01:00.004-07:002008-10-09T13:05:34.458-07:00

Here is a reprint of an open letter to Tyler Perry, by many top writers in Hollywood. Dear Tyler Perry, This season, scripted television programming will consist of about 150 shows employing 1,200 writers. Of that universe, 149 shows and 1,193 writers will produce shows covered by the Writers Guild's Minimum Basic Agreement. The MBA guarantees minimum compensation, residuals, health coverage,

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-90692677163779143722008-10-09T10:41:00.002-07:002008-10-09T10:49:48.861-07:00

I wanted to let everyone know I will be on a panel of "chica lit" writers tomorrow afternoon, as part of the 23d annual Hispanic Women's Conference, which starts today. Held at the Phoenix Convention Center, the event draws about 2500 women each year. My panel is at 2:15 p.m., with a book-signing in the Expo from 3:30 to 4:30. Should be fun, even though I just escaped Phoenix, to go back for a

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-60312686055757127342008-10-05T21:02:00.006-07:002008-10-07T07:40:34.237-07:00

There is much to admire about filmmaker Tyler Perry, but his substandard treatment of TV writers is not on the list. Last Thursday, the Writers Guild of America West filed a complaint against Perry's production company, alleging that four writers on the show "House of Payne" were fired by Perry for seeking union representation. Much has been made of Perry's rags-to-riches success story. Here's

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-31437811470363366622008-10-04T09:24:00.014-07:002008-10-04T19:20:50.089-07:00

The triumphant arrival last month of Suzanne Collins' post-apocalyptic thriller "The Hunger Games" and this month's blockbuster release of "Graceling" by Kristin Cashore signal a growing trend in young-adult fiction toward substantive stories featuring a new kind of protagonist: The smart, heroic teen girl who confronts terror and survives. "The Hunger Game" tells the story of a teen girl who

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-11846340035657577172008-10-03T23:49:00.006-07:002008-10-04T09:18:52.501-07:00

The New York Times book blog, Papercuts, recently listed a roundup of the funniest novels ever. Needless to say, nominations came from editors of the NY Times Review of Books, and listed not a single female author. This isn’t because women aren’t funny. This isn’t because funny women don’t write novels. It’s not even that women don’t read funny novels. Women buy 68 percent of all books sold, and

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-13869828898753696762008-10-03T20:03:00.005-07:002008-10-03T20:35:55.438-07:00

For the sake of my diverse readership, I am officially breaking this blog into two blogs - one for the writing life, and one for political and social observations. Think of me as morphing into a newspaper. You don't go to the national section for book reviews, and you don't go to the arts section for debate analysis. I know some of you come here for writing advice and insights into my life in

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-12020512703858889722008-10-02T21:39:00.003-07:002008-10-02T22:08:45.520-07:00

...and my oh my, wasn't it...lumpy. Surely I'm not the only person in America who saw the rectangular lump beneath Palin's suit jacket, between her shoulder blades? Battery pack, my friends. After much hoopla and publicity surrounding Palin falling on her jog with McCain, the campaign is claiming the battery pack was...a bandage. Right. With a transmitter in it. Amazing. My dad is a college

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-17487784697416056142008-09-27T18:56:00.000-07:002008-09-27T18:57:04.834-07:00

and so is Palin. The difference is, she keeps talking anyway. Embedded video from CNN Video

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-62579138682119967592008-09-27T15:20:00.002-07:002008-09-27T15:24:43.441-07:00

...because he was afraid of getting mugged. Like many children, and adults who act like children, and white people in Arizona, grumpy McPain is afraid of the dark.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-81893428632048979002008-09-26T22:41:00.002-07:002008-09-26T22:41:52.964-07:00

congress secretly voted to give another trillion bucks to the military. Read all about it. Then ask yourself where the media are.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-37600481759012446802008-09-26T22:04:00.009-07:002008-09-26T22:29:22.671-07:00

I am an Obama supporter, but let's face it: This debate sucked. McCain sucked, and Obama sucked. I really only have one question. How on earth can you have a "foreign policy" debate and not mention three inhabited continents? Africa, Latin America, Asia (barring McCain's idiot comment on people in N. Korea being shorter than those in S. Korea) It's as though the southern hemisphere did not exist

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-34923443206374286702008-09-26T09:22:00.004-07:002008-09-26T11:41:33.790-07:00

Interesting. In my work as a novelist and journalist, I have covered domestic violence in depth. Watching John McCain with his fiery ultimatum to everyone in Washington (and the nation) this week - "there better be a deal or I'm not debating!" - was reminiscent, to me, of those abusers who threaten suicide when they don't get what they want. Do we really want more Republican bullying? I don't

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-48037067946138221272008-09-25T21:46:00.002-07:002008-09-25T22:15:22.979-07:00

Last year, I wrote a novel called "The Husband Habit," and sold it to St. Martin's Press for publication in the spring/summer of 2009. My editor suggested a few changes. Sort of minor changes. Like, make the lead character anything but a writer. I, being me, brooded on said suggestions for a while. I looked back at the original book, which was in the first person, and decided to start all over

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-26064990512435611342008-09-25T11:50:00.002-07:002008-09-25T11:52:52.698-07:00

In honor of women who do things differently and listen to their own muses. Never seen anyone play guitar like this. She is amazing. My new hero.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-73020386820033537862008-09-24T00:16:00.006-07:002008-09-28T11:11:48.856-07:00

Way too many crazy, ignorant people linking to this post from fascist sites. Not worth the gray hair. In other news, how 'bout them Cowboys?

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-89672765489985272692008-09-23T13:22:00.004-07:002008-09-23T13:33:21.178-07:00

Just as the xenophobes organized Latinos against the Republicans, without meaning to, the excessive greed of the Bush (and Clinton, and Reagan) administrations (aka modern robber-barons) have finally broken the machine. And, with 1/3 of all American wealth in the hands of only 1 percent of the population, these bastards are looking to break it some more. Incredible. Go 'head, I say. Speed

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-60864794562081954502008-09-23T08:04:00.004-07:002008-09-23T08:55:56.052-07:00

(Hey, at least back then there were jobs to be had...) Are you like me, neighbor? Are there some days where you wake up, read the news, and can't stop laughing at the absurdity of it all? Do you laugh because if you didn't, you'd cry? A $700 billion bailout of failing mortgage companies and investment banks. Wow. When a government buys all the houses and gives them to the people, that's...

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-2140412761268080862008-09-22T13:17:00.004-07:002008-09-22T13:37:37.063-07:00

Fox News, the right-wing spin machine, admits today that McCain is woefully behind in the polls. But, they say, there is hope! If only grampy McCain would bash "illegals," something they (unhappily) claim he has been unwilling to do. Gee, maybe he has been unwilling to do that because immigrant-bashing is exactly what caused the Republican Party to bleed massive numbers of Hispanic voters over

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-70001862245444033002008-09-21T09:17:00.002-07:002008-09-21T09:26:43.976-07:00

I've picked up a new hobby. I wanted it to be something I knew very little about, and had no had previous interest in - just to see if I could develop an appreciation for something totally new to me. Wanna know what it is? Football. That's right. Football. Not playing football. (Hello? I'm a woman of 39, overweight, with back problems, thank you.) Watching football. And I have to say, I like

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-61078996116621930132008-09-20T09:06:00.003-07:002008-09-20T09:21:28.503-07:00

Meanwhile, speaking of women and money... I'm amazed to have actually sold my house in Scottsdale, during a time of economic crisis, in a state which has been hit very hard by the housing crash. I lost a very large amount of money on this house in the past year - everything I put down on it, in fact. I could have stayed and continued to pay for it, but, honestly, I did not see the point in

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-80952056374785401732008-09-19T00:09:00.007-07:002008-09-19T01:25:46.806-07:00

You might have heard that a hacker broke into Sarah Palin's "private" email account in hopes of "digging up dirt". I'm sure you've heard about it, because roughly three times the number of news stories have appeared about it than have appeared about Obama's and Biden's tax plan. This "hacked email" story stinks of Karl Rove. The "hacker" claims to have found nothing but family photos and some

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-12906249496160216522008-09-18T21:40:00.002-07:002008-09-18T22:04:33.867-07:00

But when you google for this, you get newspapers in Ireland and Australia. Seems like the US press, owned by just five companies (all of them run by Republi-cons) don't want us to know that Obama is back on top. Nah. They'd rather tell us how Sarah Palin, the sub-literate former podunk-town sportscaster who attended five colleges in six years (info they won't tell you), is scolding Obama, who

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15111803.post-63720002386530351462008-09-16T19:05:00.002-07:002008-09-16T19:34:49.585-07:00

Some of you might be surprised to learn that I am a pro-life Democrat. I believe life begins at conception. (Duh?) As a mother to a beautiful little boy, I can honestly tell you I believe life begins somewhere before conception. I believe my son's spirit was out there, and that I knew him before he came to live in my womb. There is of course no science for this last part, just instinct. But

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03071136748070788971noreply@blogger.com