Sophia Michaels
Alisa Lynn Valdés released her first novel, “The Dirty Girls Social Club” twenty years ago, and it was a runaway success. This prompted her to write twelve more books, until she took a ten-year break and returned with her new novel, “Hollow Beasts,” which is now available as an e-book and will be hitting bookshelves on April 1st. The novel follows rookie game warden and former poetry professor Jodi Luna as she navigates a suspenseful murder mystery.
Valdés admits that she was unsure if writing “The Dirty Girls Social Club” was selling out or not. She wrote the book in the style that she heard the publishing industry wanted, which was similar to Terry McMillan’s beloved titles such as “Waiting to Exhale” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”. She explains that the book was an exploration of what it means to be Latina, as it follows six Latinas from wildly different backgrounds who reunite regularly after college.
However, when Valdés submitted her second novel, a literary book about a female jazz saxophonist, her editor told her that it was beautiful but not in her brand. This caused her to become disillusioned with the publishing industry and she decided to try other things, such as writing a screenplay and teaching. After a near-death experience, Valdés realized that she wanted to write about home in the genre that she loved.
Valdés is 11th-generation New Mexican on her mother’s side and her father is a Cuban immigrant. She believes that New Mexico has one of the most distinct cultures in the country due to the Pueblo way of life and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. This event allowed people to retain their traditions and culture, which is something that Valdés wanted to capture in “Hollow Beasts”.
The protagonist of the novel, Jodi Luna, is a hotheaded outdoorswoman who returns to her native New Mexico with her teenage daughter after her husband dies. She decides to lean into her physical side and become a game warden. Valdés drew on her own life to create the character, combining what she learned from a friend who is a game warden with a woman hunter she knows and follows on social media.
Valdés also wanted to dramatize the real evil of white supremacy in her novel, which she saw in the news. She cites a story out of Ohio where a 14-year-old girl named Natalia Miranda was hunted down by a white supremacist who ran her over multiple times because she looked Mexican. Valdés also shares an experience of her own in Arizona where a group of men on motorcycles cornered her 6-year-old son and pretended they were going to run him over because he was Mexican.
Valdés hopes that her work will be part of a cultural movement that will bring about change for Latinas, one that holistically values them and the world we all share in a just and sustainable way. She is currently working on a deal with a prominent Latina actress to adapt “Hollow Beasts” for the screen.
