Marissa Bell Toffoli

Marissa Bell Toffoli works as a poetry teacher with California Poets in the Schools, and as an editor for UC Berkeley. She has previously read submissions for Zoetrope: All-Story. She attended UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and holds a BA in English. Marissa earned an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts (CCA) where she focused her work on poetry. At CCA, Marissa was the Editor for Transmission, a website of student and alumni work, as well as Distribution Manager and Poetry Board Member for Eleven Eleven, a journal of literature and art. For the national Poetry Out Loud competition, Marissa has coached students and been a judge for school-wide competitions. She has been invited back annually as a writing judge for student recognition projects in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, and has also been a returning poetry judge for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) Book of the Year Awards. In 2010, Marissa began publishing interviews with writers online at Words With Writers (http://wordswithwriters.com).