Alexandra Hidalgo

Words. Written, spoken, acted out, improvised, edited, reedited. Words are a royal pain to get right, but oh, so glorious when you do. I’ve written my share of bad poetry and some okay short stories, but my more eloquent authorial efforts have been in memoir and, lately, novels. I’m currently working on Ori and Rima, an upmarket women’s fiction novel for readers who love the blend of storytelling and romance in Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life and the multigenerational secrets in Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful.

Ori, a 20-year-old aspiring writer, grew up helping her single mother Clara run the school in an idyllic small town in the Venezuelan Amazon. As she’s dying from cancer, Clara sends Ori on a quest to mend the rift with Rima, Clara’s estranged mother. Clara hands Ori a ticket to Pittsburgh and a letter for Rima, warning Ori that she shouldn’t deliver it right away—she’ll know when the right time comes. When Ori knocks on Rima’s door, however, she realizes her grandmother had no idea she existed.

In this heartwarming coming-of-age story, Ori, who’s always been too grown up for her age, finds herself living with a charming grandmother who never quite grew up. As they try to figure out why Clara kept them from each other, Ori helps her grandmother mature, and Rima helps her granddaughter find her inner child. Ori’s desire to make a life in Pittsburgh is heightened by her burgeoning romance with Mordecai, her grandmother’s young neighbor. The more roots she puts down, however, the more family secrets she uncovers, making her doubt her own identity and the quest Clara laid out for her. Should she deliver a letter from a mother she no longer knows? And if she does, will it break the bonds she’s been forging?

Stay tuned for news on the novel.

A woman, Alexandra Hidalgo, is sitting in her living room while an array of books surround her. She holds a pen as she smiles into the camera.

Selected Nonfiction Writing

A group of Venezuelans stand together in Barcelona, Spain in 2017 during an anti-Maduro protest. A woman at the center is holding a Venezuelan flag. They smile at the camera.

What Happens to Venezuela Now?

Love in Many Genres Substack

Our lives are a first-person narrative, but the world is a collective one. So even though it’s only a tiny piece of this ongoing, devastating saga, here’s my individual recollection of my first encounter with the political regime that has been decimating Venezuela, my motherland, since 1999.

Four kids stand together, looking serious and ready for action. Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobbie Brown, and Sadie Sink mean business in this still from Stranger Things Season 3.

Have Yourself a Stranger Little Christmas

Love in Many Genres Substack

The culture we consume becomes a mutual language made of humorous gags, devastating losses, and character transformations. Stories help us craft our sense of ourselves and the world around us. They give us choices and beginnings, middles, and endings. Getting to enjoy and analyze them is one of the most fertile and thrilling ways to engage with others.

In a still from Neverending Story we see a boy, Atreyu, standing before a huge white dragon, Falcor, with a kind, smiling face that’s looking at him. It is night time.

The Art of Wrangling Big Projects

Love in Many Genres Substack

Having that time to play and experiment without much consequence beyond getting fewer views is a rare gift for a creator. A gift that platforms like YouTube and Substack, where you send your content into the world and get immediate feedback, are uniquely positioned to offer.

Two women pose for a picture to the left of a fountain. They are standing next to each other in an embrace, smiling with their faces pressed together. Behind them are bushes and foliage in front of a tan wall, they are outside, and it is daytime.

Mothers and Grandmothers

Love in Many Genres Substack

The mother of my adulthood is hard to reach, sometimes even when we’re together..The boundless intimacy that defined us is still there, and when it comes out, it lights up the world.

Two women, Antonieta Aagaard (left) and Alexandra Hidalgo (right), sit on a couch, smiling. They are holding tea cups. There are cream-colored walls behind them. It is daytime.

Traveling Heavy

Love in Many Genres Substack

I grew up traveling heavy, and I doubt that will ever change. Burdensome as it may be, it comes with benefits I’m not willing to forgo.

A woman (Alexandra Hidalgo) is standing and she leans forward to put her arms around a woman who (Bobbie Lousie Hawkins) is sitting at a table. They smile at the camera. They are outside with brick walls behind them. It's afternoon.

Can We Make Our Past Selves Happy?

Love in Many Genres Substack

Would my former self approve of my countless (mostly fruitful) detours? I tried to read her thoughts on how our life turned out as I explored the campus in search of its (and my) past.

In a photo faded from time, a four year old girl looks at a much taller boy, her hand extended toward the piñata stick he is holding. Be her side is a woman in purple pants and a tiny matching top. She indeed looks sexy. It is daytime. They are outside and there’s a wall covered with green plants behind them.

New Year’s Wishes and Resolutions

Love in Many Genres Substack

Introspection can also sneak in soothing surprises. As I examined my wishes for 2024, I realized that while my biggest professional desires had not come to fruition, my emotional ones had.

A woman stands in front of a mirror in a rehearsal room. She looks tense and stands to the side. The room is empty and there is a piano behind her.

The Audition

Love in Many Genres Substack

Writing is hard and publishing even harder, but you’re not alone in it. And it’s not just your characters who keep you company, it’s Jess and Jamie and Susan and Andrew—and their company makes it all worthwhile, even during the darkest moments of the process.

A man (Nathaniel Bowler) hugs a woman (Alexandra Hidalgo) from behind as they both smile at the camera. They are outside in a yard with a tree behind them. There are purple and white bushes and dandelions behind them. It’s daytime and the light is harsh.

Love at First Sight

Love in Many Genres Substack

The love-at-first-sight story is a good one, but like the best kind of love (and wine), it gets better with age. When you’ve been together a few months and you tell it, people tend to smile at you with a slight edge of condescension, like you rushed blindly into each other’s arms and will soon realize the hormones were calling the shots.

A woman (Olga Briceño) sits at a stately desk in this black and white image that is granulated from having been scanned from a paper brochure. She is gazing into space, pen and paper in her hand. The image is from the 1940s or so.

The Grand Digital Reinvention

Love in Many Genres Substack

Anytime I ponder new directions for myself, I think about my grandmother Olga Briceño, who spent her life reinventing herself around her ability to put words together.

A boy smiles at the camera. Hi is holding a multicolored heart to his right eye, playfully hiding it. Behind him there are plants in soft focus. It is daytime.

Santiago’s Heart of Many Colors

Love in Many Genres Substack

Santiago’s heart, with all its (in my mind, at least) symbolic wonder is the physical object that best exemplifies what I’m hoping to accomplish with this Substack.

A young couple stands in front of a wooded backdrop, smiling at the camera. The woman, wearing a cowboy hat, affectionately has her arm around the man.

Feedback As an Act of Love: How to Transform Storytelling by Listening to Others

MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture

You aim to create a spark without burning down the fragile structure that is someone’s in-progress project. The right kind of feedback is cautious and optimistic, a precarious act of faith and infinite possibility.

A young Agnès Varda smiles to the side, her hand resting on her chin, in a black and white photo.

Godmotherly Love

The Criterion Collection

They called Varda the grandmother of the French New Wave. So unique and propulsive was her vision that she could be said to be her own ancestor and her own progeny.

How ‘Gilmore Girls’ Rescued My Relationship with My Mother

Women and Hollywood

Some wounds, especially those that stem from fractures to our deepest connections, will always be there, but as the show so eloquently argues, that’s okay as long as we’re willing to reconcile again and again.

Filmmaking As Paying a Debt of Love: An Ode to My Father Wherever He May Be

Extraordinary Filmmakers: How to Make Films Against All Odds

When my father, Miguel Hidalgo, vanished, he left me with the potential for a captivating story, but I had to learn to how to be a storyteller first. That’s exactly the sort of quest that can give a brokenhearted six-year-old purpose and drive.

Ten Strategies for Creating Gender Equality I Learned at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit

agnès films: supporting women and feminist filmmakers

If you identify as a woman, pick up your camera, your pen, your mic. Pick up whatever instrument you choose and tell stories. And please, watch the stories that fellow women are telling so you can enjoy the world through their eyes and see your perspective reflected on the screen.