Marisa earned her Masters in Fine Arts in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was the recipient of a Fulbright grant to India in Creative Writing and an Elizabeth George Foundation novel-writing grant. Her poem “The Vanishing” won the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her novel-in-progress was a winning entry in CRAFT magazine’s 2019 First Chapters Contest. 

Marisa has received residency fellowships from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Mesa Refuge, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the Valparaiso Foundation (Spain). She has taught fiction and nonfiction at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Mills College, Stanford, and CIIS.

On the spiritual side, Marisa has been practicing Insight Meditation in retreats and daily life since 2002, and instructing since 2012. She is a Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie, a powerful practice for questioning painful beliefs and accessing intrinsic wisdom. She has long-term practices in Authentic Movement, Somatic Experiencing, and various forms of dance. She is a student in the Diamond Approach.

A recording singer-songwriter, Marisa has performed at venues ranging from San Francisco’s Herbst Memorial Theater to La Paz’s Thelonious Jazz Bar, Jerusalem’s Mike’s Place, Cape Town’s Dizzy Jazz Café, some divey club in Havana whose name she’s forgotten, and Oakland’s Ecstatic Dance. Her latest songs are available on all the things, and her music videos on Youtube.

As a freelance journalist, Marisa has written on a wide range of social and environmental issues, including the joys and trials of change in Cuba, indigenous resistance to oil exploitation in the Amazon, Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, and the sprawling tentacles of consumer culture. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Orion, Salon.com, Witness, Bitch, Tikkun, Kosmos, Ruminate, Calyx, 580 Split, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. A firm believer in the power of principled nonviolence, Marisa has worked as an organizer in grassroots justice movements, and spoken and sung about transformative change across the country and on numerous radio shows.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Marisa now makes her home in Berkeley, California.

Marisa earned her Masters in Fine Arts in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was the recipient of a Fulbright grant to India in Creative Writing and an Elizabeth George Foundation novel-writing grant. Her poem “The Vanishing” won the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her novel-in-progress was a winning entry in CRAFT magazine’s 2019 First Chapters Contest.

Marisa has received residency fellowships from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Mesa Refuge, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the Valparaiso Foundation (Spain). She has taught fiction and nonfiction at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Mills College, Stanford, and CIIS.

On the spiritual side, Marisa has been practicing Insight Meditation in retreats and daily life since 2002, and instructing since 2012. She is a Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie, a powerful practice for questioning painful beliefs and accessing intrinsic wisdom. She also has long-term practices in Authentic Movement, Somatic Experiencing, and various forms of dance.

A recording singer-songwriter, Marisa has performed at venues ranging from San Francisco’s Herbst Memorial Theater to La Paz’s Thelonious Jazz Bar, Jerusalem’s Mike’s Place, Cape Town’s Dizzy Jazz Café, some divey club in Havana whose name she’s forgotten, and Oakland’s Ecstatic Dance. Her latest songs are available on Spotify and Soundcloud, and her music videos on Youtube.

As a freelance journalist, Marisa has written on a wide range of social and environmental issues, including the joys and trials of change in Cuba, indigenous resistance to oil exploitation in the Amazon, Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, and the sprawling tentacles of consumer culture. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Orion, Salon.com, Witness, Bitch, Tikkun, Kosmos, Ruminate, Calyx, 580 Split, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. A firm believer in the power of principled nonviolence, Marisa has worked as an organizer in grassroots justice movements, and spoken and sung about transformative change across the country and on numerous radio shows.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Marisa now makes her home in Berkeley, California.