About
Marissa is working on a novel in epic fantasy and has several unpublished short stories and novels from over her fifteen-year writing journey. She fell in love with books after reading Brian Jacque’s Marlfox and was inspired to delve deeper into the power of language from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando. She explores themes of love, grief, and identity within the fantasy space, and likes to share the occasional anecdote from researching her books.
Follow her on Instagram @marissadunhambooks.
Please enjoy exploring this website.
It is sure to expand in the near future.
Bio Long
Marissa spends most of her time writing fantasy and speculative fiction novels, novellas, and short stories.
Early in her career, she worked in-house in the editorial department at a small education press. The authors she worked with were predominantly university professors debuting pedagogy books and other supplemental materials for the K-12 classroom. Desiring to work in the genres she loved to read most, Marissa left the life of an in-house editor to pursue freelance, working with authors in the fantasy and science fiction space. During her freelance years, she connected with the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) at their booth at the LA Festival of Books. From that first meeting, Marissa founded a local EFA chapter and ran programing and the email list for her county with the help of several rotating co-coordinators. After ten years in the editing field, she returned to writing and ideas for stories that had been waiting for her to be ready for far too long. She now spends most of her time in her imagination and making those books a reality.
Marissa holds a Master of Arts Degree in Medieval Studies (Literature Pathway) from the University of Birmingham (UK), as well as a Certificate in Copyediting from the University of San Diego Extension.
She attended Richard Bausch’s Community Writers Workshop and is a regular at local poetry open mics. Ongoingly, she is an active member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and founded and coordinated programing for the former Orange County Chapter of the EFA.
You can find her nonfiction writing at Marissa’s Take On column on O.C. Writers.com, where she reviewed 100 books on the craft of writing. If you’d like to hear what she’s up to lately, please join the newsletter.
Marissa lives in Southern California where she loves gardening, visiting new bookstores, and attending to her many other interests. Her hope is to finish her fantasy novel sooner rather than later.