Biography of Author- Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Alisa Lynn Valdes was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father, Nelson Valdés, is a retired sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and emigrated from Cuba in the early 1960s.Her mother, Maxine Conant, is a seventh-generation New Mexican of Irish descent, and a poet and novelist.

Valdes spent her childhood primarily in New Mexico, but also lived briefly in Glasgow, Scotland and New Orleans. Upon her graduation from Del Norte High School in Albuquerque she attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where she majored in jazz performance on the tenor saxophone.

Valdes-Rodriguez has since written six novels: Playing With Boys in 2004 and Make Him Look Good in 2006; a Young Adult novel, Haters, in 2006; Dirty Girls on Top, a sequel to The Dirty Girls Social Club, in 2008, The Husband Habit in 2009 and The Three Kings in 2010.

I chose to do a biography on this author because one of my favorite books she wrote which was Haters, I really enjoyed it and read more of her novels after I finished the first one.

Journal Topic #1-Quote

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.  ~Paul Sweeney

The author of this quote is Paul Sweeney he has written many popular quotes as well as novels. He is not an extremely famous author but is known by many. What the writer means by the quote is that, a good novel that you’re enjoying towards the end of it you are upset that it's over; you want to keep reading more. He uses it as an example as losing a friend, you spend time with the book just like a friend and when the book is over you've lost it. You get to know the book; as if you get to know a friend and when you’ve finished it, it is gone which is similar to the death and the loss of a friend but of course less traumatic. Although I find this only happens when you’re reading a book you’ve been enjoying. Many times when I am reading a good novel and it comes to an end I am very upset and want to keep reading. That is why I took the same understanding to the quote as the author did. I am very fond of this quote because I related to the quote and many times when I am finished a novel I feel the exact same way.