When Riz was thirteen years old, her parents had an ugly divorce that resulted in the two parties ending communication unless it was about their child. Her mother then went on to marry William Dumont months later to move up the social ladder, even though she claimed it was love. With a new man pretending he'd been there all her life and his cute son Alec she now had to see more often than not, Riz was forced by her mother to live a dual life in both the city and the gated community life in Glen Cove, Long Island. She took to writing and martial arts as a way to get her anger and frustration out. The morbid phase was short, though, and eventually her writing turned from sad and confused short stories to something resembling happiness. Few things made her smile or react positively but her father and best friend always managed to make her seemingly stalled heart swell. She began to attend high school in the city, taking the railroad out everyday and always rushing to Grand Central to catch the train home.

With her father managing to steal her away so often, she mastered the happiness game. Not only did high school in the city serve as a way to stay away from Long Island and rich snobs, it also held a group of people she considered more family than those in Glen Cove. After graduation, Riz chose to attend Boston College, majoring in Creative Writing. For four years, she was been able to live without her mother constantly trying to coddle her and get her help and without her step-father always telling her that he'd be there for her no matter what when that was the last thing she wanted to hear. And, even though he is the spawn of the ever-caring William, Alec and Riz have actually become pretty close, especially since he too decided to attend BC. Of course, they pretend to hate each other at home- it keeps things interesting.

When she graduated from college, Riz moved back to New York and managed to write for small magazines here and there for a few years. With her experience, she started to understand that she wanted to do something bigger and have her voice heard by more people. In 2010, she started writing a not so helpful advice column for the Village Voice and people loved it so much that she started a blog. In the past three years, her blog has become one of the most popular on the internet. She was amazed that people were so receptive to her just talking about her day to day life, especially since she didn't see it as that interesting. Now she writes for her blog full-time and holds weekly live chats so she can feel closer to her audience. As long as they're willing to read, she's always willing to write.