Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela

Marissa is curating a creative writing anthology of authors who have attended the annual VONA  summer workshop, the only multi-genre workshop for writers of color in the nation. The publication will be available in print and digital formats and will, in the second phase of the project, be developed into a high school/early college level reader, so students can engage in contemporary examples of creative writing that captures a multiplicity of experiences. The book will be a community-building tool through readings and documentation.

Marissa’s art is based in community and explorations of what it means to transcend definitions and expectations — from making her own zine, Self Defense, to explore political issues, to her foray into fiction writing, to working alongside Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico to create murals, to her work as a DJ in Philadelphia. Her writing comes out of her desire to examine the world we live in. All of her stories possess change qualities in that they ask questions about common humanity. In her writing, she focuses on the remixing and blending of elements, to examine the ways that people are hybrids and extend beyond definitions. At its best, her writing challenges and offers hope. The inspiration for her DJ work is different— she wants to make people dance. Marissa uses the DJ name, Half-Breed, as a way to reclaim this oft-used slur that was once yelled at her and her brother. Using this name inherently challenges and provokes, also illustrating the ways in which we can all be between definitions. She focuses on collecting and celebrating female MCs (rappers), introducing their work to audiences used to listening to male-dominated music. As a DJ, she organizes events such as The Beautiful Struggle that benefits a different social change group each month and Sugar Walls, where she only plays female MCs to both celebrate their work to address how sidelined, sexualized and tokenized women in hip-hop are. She also works political/ positive hip-hop into her DJing work, as well as mixing in other genres of music with the understanding that what makes hip-hop so great is that it is a remix of what has come before it and the world around it.