Marissa holds a BA in Political Science from Brown University and a MFA in Fiction from the University of Texas, Austin, where she taught literature and creative writing courses, and won the Michael Adams Thesis Prize. Her reporting has appeared in The Nation, The Columbia Journalism Review online and on Rhode Island Public Radio. Her fiction has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Florida Review and Meridian. A former editorial assistant for The PEN / O'Henry Prize Stories and former Associate Editor at Nation Books, she currently works as a freelance editor and translator, and is at work on a novel. Based in Paris, Marissa likes to bake in her free time, a passion she discovered when her mom and abuelita invited her to assist them in baking cakes (though her pastries rarely come out as good as the ones the French make!)