Alexandra Hidalgo is a Venezuelan writer, filmmaker, and academic, which makes her a triple threat—or someone who struggles to pick between her passions. Descending from a long line of Venezuelan writers, she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University, then moved to France, certain the narrow streets and abundance of wine and croissants would help her pen a masterpiece. After two years writing unremarkable prose in a remarkable setting, she began her PhD in English at Purdue University, where she fell in love with filmmaking and nonfiction writing. Her work has been featured in The Criterion Collection, NPR, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, and Women and Hollywood.
In 2024, she launched two sister projects that explore the ups and downs of love and relationships: Her Substack Love in Many Genres uses prose, photography, and video to examine and celebrate love in all its messy and wondrous glory, and her YouTube channel All The Love! analyzes big-hearted books, movies, and TV. Through these interconnected projects, she also provides a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process, including for her in-progress novel, Ori and Rima.
Alexandra is an endowed associate professor and Crow Chair of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she explores intersections between academia, publishing, and filmmaking. Her documentaries have been official selections for film festivals in 15 countries and been screened at universities around the United States. She is the recipient of From the Heart Productions’ inaugural “Carole Joyce Award for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling.”
Her video book Cámara Retórica: A Feminist Filmmaking Methodology for Rhetoric and Composition received the 2018 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. She has published over 20 book chapters and articles in edited collections and journals like Kairos, Composition Studies, and Enculturation. Her video essay, “Motherhood on the Screen,” received the 2020 Kairos Best Webtext Award. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space.
Alexandra lives in Pittsburgh with her husband Nate (who willingly edits her writing and reluctantly films her documentaries) and their two sons.