About Maria E. Andreu

Maria E. Andreu, essayist and blogger and creator of the 51 First Dates After Divorce Project, is currently at work on a coming-of-middle-age memoir and a young adult novel.

Her work has appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Star Ledger and NJ.com, among others.

Okay, I can’t do this third person thing any more.

You know that every writer’s bio that you read is written by the writer herself, right?  Unless the writer is, like, Henry Kissinger or the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love (and even that last one is open for debate).  So, I started to write about myself all serious-like, in the third person.  I’ve done it before, but, for some reason, this time I couldn’t pull it off.

For a serious bio, scroll down below to the “bio I wrote for my memoir, Illegal.”  I first tried to cut and paste that in here, but it didn’t feel genuine any more, although everything in it is true.  Bios, like people, constantly evolve.

The truest thing I can say about myself is that, somehow, in one way or another, all my life I have been a writer.  I have only come to feel worthy of that title recently, with the luxury of decades of personal history to look back on.  Whether I’ve been writing short stories (really, really bad ones) late at night after working full time and taking a full course load in college, or submitting essays that got shot down by literary magazines or convincing a small magazine publisher who was trying to sell me advertising to let me write for him instead, somehow, I have always found my way back to the written word.  I have had some inspiring successes (look to my “Latest Published Essays” for examples).  More importantly, have come to learn that the external validation of a published piece doesn’t make me a writer.  It is this lifelong love affair that sings to me and lures me back to the computer every time that is the real triumph.

I have several drafts of a memoir, Illegal, a book still in search of its ending.  I am also halfway through a wonderful memoir (I think!) on some pretty ground-quaking events of this year (figuratively and literally).   I have a working title so funny I am not yet prepared to share it with the world.  But stay tuned.

I am also the author of the blog 51 First Dates after Divorce Project, a free-wheeling carnival ride through the landscape of finding love the next time around.

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Follow 51 First Dates After Divorce on Twitter (much more fun, since I post there more regularly).

 

 

 

 

 

Bio I wrote for my memoir, Illegal:

Maria E. Andreu is an American writer and immigrants’ rights activist. She is the author of the forthcoming Illegal: Growing Up Unwanted in America. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek and the Washington Post, and she is a regular blogger for the Newark Star Ledger.

Born in Madrid, Spain, she was brought to the United States as an infant by her parents, undocumented immigrants who had overstayed a visitors’ visa. She grew up American, but at age 6, the death of her paternal grandfather caused her and her mother to return to Argentina (where he lived) for what was intended as a month-long trip. They were unable to return to the States. After two years of attempting to get a visa, she, at age 8, and her mother, crossed the Mexican border illegally into the United States. She experienced the life of the undocumented until receiving amnesty after the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in the 1980′s.

Shortly after high school graduation she became a legal resident and, later, a citizen of the U.S. She used the opportunity to become a business owner, sought after marketing consultant and, when the immigration debate heated up, an advocate for those currently in the position she once experienced as a child.

Maria lives in New Jersey with her two great children, her three funny dogs and one wise ferret. After a lifetime of feeling excluded, she finally feels like she belongs.

 

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