About Marissa

Back in elementary school, Marissa was always the first in line when the bookmobile would arrive. In middle school, her teacher singled her out as a gifted writer, which Marissa recalls as a defining moment in her life. She is now living her passion as a full-time author.

Originally self-published in 2000, the following year Harper Collins offered Marissa a three-book contract, and she has not looked back. She has also been published by Kensington Books, Hachette Book Group, and Blackstone Audio, Inc.

In 2015, Marissa was named one of Conversations Magazine's 25 Women Changing the World, and she was recently voted the 2015 Female Author of the Year at the 2nd Annual GANSPA Award Show. Five of her titles have been African American Literary Award Show nominees, and she received the Pink Diamond Book Club Award in 2010. Also in 2010, she was voted amongst the Women of Influence in Publishing by Written Magazine. Her titles have debuted as top-ten bestsellers on Black Expressions, and also voted Best Reads. Since 2009, Marissa has been a regular monthly contributor to the Novel Spaces blog site, an eclectic group of authors bound by writing.

Marissa also writes under two pen names, one being Sylvia Sinclair, which identifies her interracial romance titles. To Each Her Own by Sylvia Sinclair debuted in August of 2015. 2016 will bring Marissa’s second non-fiction title, The Mind of a Man, and a novel devoted to women who have been the bridesmaid, and never the bride, called The Practice Wife. In 2018, to celebrate the anniversary Marissa's twenty year writing career, the final in the Hot Boyz trilogy will be released, called L.A. Husband and Wives.

Marissa is currently taking on ghostwriting and developmental editing projects under her company, SilentINK, which includes celebrity memoirs and contemporary novels.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she now resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her family and her 60 lb. German shepherd.