GREEN, Risa

PERSONAL: Married; children: one daughter. Education: Graduate of University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University Law Center.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, NAL/Penguin Putnam, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER: Writer. Formerly worked as a corporate finance attorney; Milken Community High School, Los Angeles, CA, co-director of college counseling.

WRITINGS:

Notes from the Underbelly (novel), New American Library (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Risa Green's job as co-director of college counseling at a private day school in the Los Angeles area serves as inspiration for her first novel, Notes from the Underbelly. This 2005 novel takes a humorous look at what happens when Lara Stone, a glamorous college counselor at a chic Beverly Hills prep school, caves to her husband's wish to have a baby. Stone grapples with her rapidly growing middle, using retail therapy to silence her doubts, all the while struggling with the daily duties of her job.

Beth Leistensnider, in a review of Notes from the Underbelly for Booklist, voiced concern that Green's protagonist might be too stereotypically Valley Girl-turns-mother to appeal to most readers, writing that "many pregnant women will find themselves unable to stomach the omigod-I'm-so-fat prattle spewing from Lara and her image-conscious L.A. friends." However, a Kirkus Reviews writer enjoyed Green's novel, dubbing the work "a cut above the usual chick-lit fare." The Kirkus Reviews writer went on to call Notes from the Underbelly "a breezy, easy-reading account of expectant motherhood in the land of celebrity piques and perks," while in Entertainment Weekly a critic referred to Green's book as "an uproariously tart account" of the tolls of motherhood.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2005, Beth Leistensnider, review of Notes from the Underbelly, p. 1136.

Entertainment Weekly, April 8, 2005, Jennifer Armstrong and Clarissa Cruz, "Chic Lit 101: Heroine Chic," p. 70.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2005, review of Notes from the Underbelly, p. 9.

Publishers Weekly, January 24, 2005, Natalie Danford, review of Notes from the Underbelly, p. 118.

ONLINE

New American Library Authors Web site, http://www.nalauthors.com/ (May 4, 2005), "Risa Green."