About me
An Arkansas Native, Marrissa has come a long way in her journey into publishing. She doubled majored in
professional writing and creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas. Since she has obtained her MFA in Creative writing at Chapman University in California, she has dedicated herself, wholeheartedly, to publishing through leading her literary innovation team, JourneyWriter, in their path to healing the literacy
crisis. She is also a member of the New York non-profit, Inkluded Inc.- assisting them with introducing young BiPOCs publishing professionals to the industry. She has also had the opportunity to work with Publisher’s Weekly as a writer and Booklife extern. She is now entering her path to agenting with Ladderbird with a clean slate, but experienced mind.
Marissa grew up in a literary world that valued-highly-BIPOC pain and poverty. So much so, that
those narratives became commonplace and make up a small portion of the literary canon.
With every direction she took with her career, her goal has been simple: to obtain books that
can hold perennial and redefine BIPOCs places in the literary canon. Saying that,she is
looking for works that depict BIPOC voices in the full spectrum- from the most mundane to
the most spectacular lifestyles, from the bittersweet to the joyous.
She deeply values detail, and leans more towards a show me, rather than tell me sort of
narration. She loves when writers give her a chance to critically think about the messages that
they want to send. She does not enjoy direct or surface writing. She loves when a writer digs into the
complications and puts you into the room where everything happens. She also enjoys stories
that have a great balance of plot with multiple subplots and practically have an ensemble of
characters. Marissa adores high intellect, morally clear, soft-hearted characters. She also likes cold and
decisive characters.
Marissa is currently interested in accepting Adult, New Adult fiction, and Craft/Homemaking.She
does not accept Picture Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, legal, mystery/spy thrillers,
paranormal, religious, hyper-sexual, or dark romance.
Marrissa is a reader that values detailed narratives, intelligent and cool characters, lessons learned, and family gained in unlikely places. When Marrissa is not reading you can find her drinking sweet iced tea, eating pasta, and watching the latest foreign drama.
