Meet Marissa Ayala

We were lucky to catch up with Marissa Ayala recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marissa , so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?

This past year, I returned to a consistent writing routine and art practice after years of needing to put writing on pause due to life circumstances. Returning to a sense of self and creative writing as an identity is incredible. A few things have helped me: setting up my career focusing on work-life balance, carving out a space in my house only for writing, reading, and art, and structuring my free time where I’m held accountable to show up and write with others. I’ve built on the foundation of showing up by prioritizing friendships that fuel artistic thinking, experimenting with new ways to enter creative thought, and leaning into multidisciplinary art forms, establishing my writing as an intersection of language and visual art.

My career is as a tech researcher, building a UX Research program for my company. This is a fully remote role, and I’ve had to create boundaries in my home to ensure it does not become my office. After a year of living in my house, I turned an extra room into a creative writing, reading, and art studio where only these activities are allowed. I don’t even let myself check work-related items on my phone or listen to work-related podcasts while in this room. This way, when I enter my creative space, I intentionally use my time and energy. This has given me a home to create and relax into creative thought.

When life circumstances made it difficult to show up for my practice in a fully committed way, I leaned into designing spaces to support others with their writing and creative practice. I founded The East Austin Writing Project community organization, where I lead writing workshops, and I have also built a team of three teaching artists to lead workshops. Showing up for others over time has given me the practice to show up for myself. I engage with my creative community and get re-inspired when I’m in a creative block.

To better support the East Austin Writing Project community, I began publishing the writing prompts I designed for in-person workshops on a Substack and sharing my draft response to encourage others to share and find value in what a writing prompt can generate in only 15-20 minutes. My first few posts were directly the prompts used in the workshop for those who could not attend or wanted to repeat them at home. I then started designing and publishing my writing prompts with all the supporting materials. Using multi-sensory and surprising entries into creative writing helped me get unstuck and has provided a place for me to experiment with voice, tone, language, structure, and content, as well as reference old writing of mine to re-work into something new. This practice helped me establish a writing routine while discovering new entry points into creative thought. The Substack is an archive of organized first drafts that I pull from and edit offline. This is helpful when I want to start a new project but need a jumping-off point.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My current project is a new experimental fiction book incorporating my visual art while expanding programming with The East Austin Writing Project. The book is based on travel, research, and my practice of opening up and shutting down as an artist. The changes I’ve made to my writing practice have helped me find an exciting format. I’m leaning into the creative process until the book is completed, and then I’ll take it from there.

In expanding East Austin Writing Project programming, for at least two years, my bi-monthly workshops had 17 participants with waiting lists that averaged 35 people per workshop. Three friends who participated in the East Austin Writing Project approached me about starting their sections. We decided to launch four new sections within two months. We went from the East Austin Writing Project being a team of one to four (and growing). Instead of two workshops I led, we now have six free workshops a month: intro and advanced poetry, two prose groups, and one full critique workshop. Additionally, in 2025, we are launching a performance series and a small press book club.

This past year, I’ve also changed how I organize and run The East Austin Writing Project. We were using MeetUp for workshop registration as our workshop model includes sending resources to participants to pre-read before every workshop. The owner of a minor, locally owned business I partnered with inspired me to use Instagram. From there, I realized I wanted a more fluid form of communication and a more established artists-network model, so I decided to pilot WhatsApp. Five months later, we’re all using it. The switch to social platforms from MeetUps has led to a more substantial interconnected experience for our writers and the artists/organizations we collaborate and partner with.

My goal with the East Austin Writing Project is to connect, promote, and collaborate with local working artists. Every year, Austin has two weekends of Austin Studio Tours. The first weekend, WEST, is when West Austin opens its galleries and studios and hosts art events. The second weekend, EAST, East Austin galleries and artists’ studios are open for visitors, and art events occur. East Austin is the city’s largest arts district. I was introduced to an artist who hosts a collective of eight other artists at her home studio, Grackle House. She was excited about having a literary element. I curated a lineup of East Austin Writing Project writers and co-hosted this with an art friend of mine, Emily May, who runs West Decadent in Austin, Texas. At this event, I read an excerpt of my working experimental fiction project and shared the stage with an essayist and two poets. Our readers sold their books, zines, and art, and we spent the weekend supporting all the artists who participated in Grackle House’s three-day lineup.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Creative Expression is significant to the very core of who I am. Because I know this, when I am down, leaning into simple forms of creative expression, such as making shapes with watercolors, lifts me, calms me, and returns me to myself. Then, when I’m feeling great, I explore creative expression with friends, written texts, and higher-effort writing and visual art projects. 

Play – Creative practice with a sense of play supports my ability to stay curious while engaging with the world in new and surprising ways.

Community—Working with a writing and arts community makes me feel rooted in a sense of home and place. It also helps me understand ways to engage with creativity and push my art.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I’m actively seeking opportunities to partner my writing with the work of visual and sound artists and experimental filmmakers. A performance I did in 2022 with COTFG’s New Media Sound Summit was a collaboration with a sound artist. I wrote some of his music/sounds, and he created some music based on my writing. We performed as a duo; it was an enjoyable and interesting project. I’d love to engage in activities where we co-create and pair our work.

The East Austin Writing Project is launching a multidisciplinary, writing-first series in 2025. I’m putting together a team for this. If you’re interested in being involved, please let me know. We’re seeking established and emerging writers, visual, digital, and sound artists, filmmakers, musicians, and anyone with interesting thoughts on art collaborations to perform with us and for the community at large.

If this interests you or someone you know, please get in touch with me through the East Austin Writing Project’s Instagram (@eastaustinwrites) or my website’s contact form.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.marissaanneayala.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eastaustinwrites/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissaayala/
• Other: https://eastaustinwrites.substack.com/