With the publication in 1985 of her best-seller Arráncame la vida, Ángeles Mastretta was propelled into the literary limelight, and her next best-selling success, Mal de amores (1996), further bolstered her superstardom. While the intellectual conflict between literatura light and literatura difícil, which is at the heart of much of the negative reception of Mastretta's two novels, has been extensively researched, almost no academic studies exist on the strategies which the author has used in projecting and maintaining her superstardom. This article analyses this hitherto unexplored area by examining the role of publishers in the creation of Mastretta as a celebrity, the recent film adaptation of Arráncame la vida, Mastretta's blog site interventions, and her extensive media appearances. The construction of the literary icon/star as a cultural artefact examined here contributes to the budding field of stardom and fandom studies and the growing scholarly interest in the emerging canon of Mexican and Latin American writers in cyberspace.