My name is Marisa Donnelly, born and raised in suburban Chicago and currently living in Northern Iowa. I have always been passionate about writing and reading. I wrote my first short-story at age eight featuring me and my pet guinea pig, Peanut, as the main characters stranded on a desert island. As an eight-year-old, I was driven to write by a teacher who bought every student a notebook and said, simply, ‘Write’. That was my first inspiration and what really made me want to be both a writer, and especially, a teacher.
Since that class, I’ve filled twenty-three different composition notebooks, own and post on five blogs, and currently carry at least three journals/diaries with me at all times. I’ve been published in several literary magazines: Crusader of Waldorf College, Catfish Creek of Loras College, The Tenth Muse of Clarke University, and one that is nationally-recognized, The Briar Cliff Review of Briar Cliff University. I also have blog posts published on Thought Catalog, PuckerMob, and Lies About Parenting.
In 2014, I was granted the Alpha Chi National Honors Society Research Grant to attend writing workshops at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival of the University of Iowa. I attended two workshops, one in poetry and one in short-story writing in the summer of 2014. Currently I am free-lance writing and student teaching.
Writing is my passion, and I hope to inspire my students to write. In the Spring of 2014, I worked with middle school students in both writing and reading with the hope that I could influence them to think positively about English. For the past five years I have also worked as a writing tutor in Waldorf College’s Writing Center.
Not only am I passionate about writing, but I also play college softball. This past May marked my ninth and final year of playing, but I hope that I can pursue the sport through being a coach—thus the reason for my coaching endorsement.
My plans now that I have graduated are to finish student teaching and pursue a full-time teaching career as well as obtain my MFA in Creative Writing.
I am excited to continue my future in the education field and plan to be a successful teacher for any grade level or classroom in which I am placed.