Liza Monroy (born November 12, 1979;

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Liza Gennatiempo) is an American novelist, memoirist, essayist, and educator. Her debut novel, ''Mexican High'' (2008), was published by

Spiegel and Grau Spiegel & Grau was originally a publishing imprint of Penguin Random House founded by Celina Spiegel and Julie Grau in 2005. On January 25, 2019, Penguin Random House announced that the imprint was being shut down and the two founders were leav ...

Early life and education

Liza Monroy was born in 1979 in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. Her parents divorced when she was young. Her mother Peggy was

American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora ...

and had worked for the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

; and her father was Italian and had worked in the restaurant industry. She has a BFA degree (2000) from

Emerson College Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands ( Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a ...

; and a MFA degree in non-fiction from

Columbia University School of the Arts The Columbia University School of the Arts, (also known as School of the Arts or SoA) is the fine arts graduate school of Columbia University in Morningside Heights, New York. It offers Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Film, Visual Arts, ...

. She also served as an instructor in the undergraduate writing program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

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 Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

in 1993 and attending an elite private high school. 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. The book ''The Marriage Act'' explores human relationships, and addresses the concepts of marriage and love. Her articles and essays have appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...

'', the ''

L.A. Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'', ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'', ''

Jane Jane may refer to: * Jane (given name), a feminine given name * Jane (surname), related to the given name Film and television * ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd * ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fil ...

'', ''

Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...

'', '' 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.

Publications

* * * *

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monroy, Liza Writers from Seattle 21st-century American novelists American women novelists Living people 1979 births American women essayists 21st-century American women writers Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 21st-century American essayists Novelists from Washington (state) Emerson College alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Writers from Santa Cruz, California