Andrea Portes is the bestselling novelist of the critically lauded adult novel, Hick. The book was her debut and has since been made into a feature film starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Alec Baldwin, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne, and Juliette Lewis. Bury This, her second novel, was published in January 2014 by Soft Skull Press. Anatomy of a Misfit is her third novel, and her first for young adult readers.

Andrea grew up shuffled around between such disparate locales as Nebraska, Brasília, Texas, Rio de Janiero, Baltimore, North Dakota, California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Finally, Andrea was granted relief from this nomadic existence when she was accepted to Bryn Mawr College. She attended on full scholarship and later graduated cum laude, with a major in English literature. She then earned her master's in fine arts degree from UC San Diego.

After her relentless education, Andrea moved to the neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles, where she spent years mostly getting into trouble. It was in this period of vague nothingness that Andrea penned her debut novel, in longhand in three notebooks. Currently, she lives in the neighborhood of Los Feliz, in Los Angeles.