We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marissa LaRocca. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marissa below.

Marissa , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

So far, I have written and published two books: Starving In Search of Me: A Coming-of-Age Story of Overcoming An Eating Disorder and Finding Self-Acceptance and Everyone Is a Freak: Anonymous Confessions About Sex, Sexuality, and Desire. And I am hard at work on my third book, about my experiences with toxic relationships in the LGBTQ+ community as a masc-of-center queer female.

Each book I write serves as an investigation into a particular struggle in my life, so each one has meant a lot to me.

I wrote Starving In Search of Me after graduating college, and although it’s about overcoming an eating disorder, it’s also about learning to accept my authentic self rather than strive to be someone I’m not. As a highly sensitive, introverted person, I struggled with a lot of social anxiety and self-doubt in my teens and early 20s. I developed an eating disorder to cope with low self-worth, shame, and this feeling of not belonging. Writing the book enabled me to come to terms with myself and eventually, recover.

My second book, Everyone Is a Freak, is a compilation of other people’s stories (with a few of my own mixed in). In my late 20’s, I experienced overwhelming gender dysphoria coupled with a lot of envy toward cis, straight men. In an attempt to quell my insecurities, I decided to collect stories from people around the world willing to share intimate confessions about sex, sexuality, and desire. My hope was that reading other people’s raw secrets would help me feel less alone. I also created this book to help bridge the gap between the LGBTQ+ community and cishet people because I think it’s ridiculous that LGBTQ+ folks get “othered” into an acronym, deeming us “alternative” or “atypical.” Meanwhile, sex and sexuality are so multifaceted! There are plenty of straight, cis folks who are much freakier than I am, hence the title, Everyone Is a Freak. We are all human and we’re all in this together. This is why sharing truthful stories is so important to me—stories challenge biases, break down barriers, and help us relate to one another.

Finally, my third book, which I am working on now (the working title is Waiting for Wildflowers), captures the challenges I faced in queer romantic relationships in my late 20s and early 30s. After dating a woman with a Cluster B personality disorder, then dating another woman right after that in a relationship that involved aspects of abuse (physical, emotional, and psychological), I felt desperate for support and resources to help me navigate the inner turmoil I was experiencing. That’s when I noticed there are very few books about relationship abuse written by queer authors, specifically for a queer audience. I read dozens of mainstream books about toxic relationship dynamics, but none of them spoke to the specific challenges I faced as a masc-of-center lesbian. So, I decided to write a book about my own experiences with the hope that it might serve as a needed resource for others.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Sure. I’ll start by saying I hate small talk, haha. That’s why I became a writer—to express my innermost truths and connect with others in ways that feel meaningful. I have been writing for my entire life, but got serious about it when I attended the Creative Writing Conservatory at Purchase College. I graduated in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in poetry, which always feels a little funny to say out loud. But I have managed to remain steadily employed throughout my adult life despite graduating during a financial recession with a degree in something “impractical.”

Shortly after college, I got into holistic health and wellness and attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN). I then got a job at IIN in New York City and worked there for 10 years. Throughout that time, I published two #1 Amazon bestsellers: Starving In Search of Me (Mango, 2018) and Everyone Is a Freak (2019). I also launched my side business, Pilot Press, and started working with private clients as a ghostwriter, editor, and book coach.

My work has been featured in Go Magazine, Self Magazine, Glam, Elite Daily, Well+Good, Nashville Voyager, Topic, Pretty Progressive, The Chrysalis Reader, Different & Able, the Integrative Nutrition blog, and the Chill Times. Additionally, I have taught or spoken at New York University (NYU), Purchase College, Florida International University (FIU), the Institute for Integrative Nutriion, and Healthy Futures of Texas.

My goals for the future include: publishing more books, starting a podcast, doing more workshops and speaking gigs, and working with more authors and influencers to write and publish books aimed to empower marginalized voices.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I want to inspire people to be more open-minded and self-aware so they can live their highest truths. I think much of the bullying, hate, and violence in the world is the result of people not understanding one another and not knowing how to work their way out of their own suffering. I especially want to empower queer people, introverts, and other marginalized groups to share their voices and help shape society in ways that make us all feel more included, seen, celebrated, and taken care of.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As an author, every time I set out to write a book, the book simultaneously writes me. Writing for me is always a process of self-discovery, and that makes it really rewarding. Another rewarding aspect of being a creative who also happens to be queer is that I love challenging the boxes that society has tried to fit me into. Most of society’s ideas about how people should work and behave and navigate the world don’t make sense to me. So it’s been liberating and rewarding to be able to experiment with different ways of being to find what works for me. I feel empowered each time I choose to embrace the things that make me feel sane and good, even if I seem a little eccentric to others.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.marissalarocca.com
• Instagram: @marissa.larocca
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissalarocca

Image Credits
Photos 1, 2 & 5 – Emily April Allen (@emilyaprilallenphoto)
Photo 3 – Heather Leigh Cullum (@heatherleighcullum)