Marisa Catalina Casey feels most at home on the west coast of South America and the east coast of North America. Adopted from Bogotá, Colombia, she earned her M.A. from Columbia University and her B.A. from Brown University. Prior to writing creatively, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador, founder of a community-based arts center in Brooklyn, and co-director of a summer writing program for teens in NYC and London. In 2023, Marisa was named a Las Musas Books Hermana and a Writers Grotto Rooted & Written Fellow. In 2024, she was selected to join the Macondo Writers Workshop, founded by Sandra Cisneros, and was awarded the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Scholarship. Co-editor and contributor to Born in Our Hearts: Stories of Adoption, Marisa has earned scholarships from SCBWI, Highlights Foundation, We Need Diverse Books, and the Flor y Canto Fund, among others.