Marianna Marlowe
Portrait of a Feminist
Through braided memories that flash against the present day, Portrait of a Feminist depicts the evolution of Marianna Marlowe’s identity as a biracial and multicultural woman—from her childhood in California, Peru, and Ecuador to her adulthood as an academic, a wife, and a mother.
How does the inner life of a feminist develop? How does a writer observe the world around her and kindle, from her earliest memories, a flame attuned to the unjust?
With writing that is personal, nuanced, and direct, Marlowe confronts her own experiences with the hallmarks of patriarchy. Interweaving stories of life as the child of a Catholic Peruvian mother and an atheist American father in a family that lived many years abroad, she examines realities familiar to so many of us—unequal marriages, class structures, misogynist literature, and patriarchal religion. Portrait of a Feminist explores the essential questions of feminism in our time: What does it look like to live in defense of feminism? How should feminism be evolving today?
Bio
I am a Latina writer who focuses on creative nonfiction that explores issues of gender identity, feminism, cultural hybridity, intersectionality, and more. My short memoir has been published in Narrative, Hippocampus, The Woven Tale Press, Eclectica, Sukoon, and The Acentos Review among others. My first memoir, Portrait of a Feminist, was published in the Spring of 2025 by She Writes Press, and my second, Portrait of a Mestiza, will be published May 26, 2026.
I absolutely adore my home county in Northern California—Marin—where every day I thank any powers that might be for the oaks and the redwoods, the reservoirs and the trails, Mount Tamalpais and the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’ve always been an impassioned reader, and when not reading or writing, I like to spend time drinking tea on the patio or by the fire, attending my five book clubs, or walking the gorgeous beaches just north of where I live.
