EAST AUSTIN WRITING PROJECT
EAST AUSTIN WRITING PROJECT
We create community through the practice of writing as a collaborative act.
Our Story
Established in 2018, the East Austin Writing Project began as a small in-person writing group that went remote during the pandemic lockdown. Post-lockdown, Marissa founded the East Austin Writing Project community organization. This was done by developing partnerships with small, locally owned businesses in East Austin, Texas, forming arts partnerships, and establishing collaborations between East Austin Writing Project writers and local East Austin artists.
In addition to forming partnerships, Marissa launched a two-year literary salon called Poetry Night, which was an intimate gathering of cross-disciplinary artists who connected over our shared interest in poetry. She also opened a workshop for poets and co-hosted readings with a local artist, editor of a publishing press, and an East Austin art gallery.
Due to high demand and long waitlists for writing workshops, in 2024, Marissa brought on a team of teaching artists who each designed and led their workshops. In 2025, we’re launching a small press book club. We plan to expand the team to include a collective of East Austin Writing Project members interested in producing a reading/performance series.
Our Mission
The East Austin Writing Project is a creative writing community that supports writers and multidisciplinary artists in developing their writing skills, focusing on storytelling and craft. Storytelling has the power to drive change, and by creating a network of artists, we can help empower writers to share their stories with the community.
We are committed to providing free and affordable events to ensure equitable access to the arts. The East Austin Writing Project has a strong foundation with pathways for writers and artists to connect within and outside our events, ensuring all participants benefit from a local creative community. Additionally, we are working towards a funding model that will provide working artists with equitable wages.
Our Team
Marissa Anne Ayala
Founder, Organizer, and Teaching Artist - Writing Group, Advanced Poetry Club
Marissa is a writer, artist, and researcher in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in New Media and Sound Summit by COTFG, Poets of Queens Anthology, Fugue, Pen + Brush Literary Magazine, Pen + Brush Art Gallery, Tupelo Press, & more. Marissa was featured in Poets & Writers magazine. She is the founder of the East Austin Writing Project. She earned a BA in Writing and Literature from Naropa University and an MFA in Fiction from the New School.
My writing exists at the intersection of language and visual art.
Favorite Authors: Anne Carson, Rosemarie Waldrop, Clarice Lispector, Bhanu Kapil, Marguerite Duras, Maggie Nelson, Ocean Vuong, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Roland Barthes, and Virginia Woolf.
Favorite Artists: Josef Albers, Hilma af Klint, Carmen Herrera, Louise Bourgeois, Cecilia Vicuña, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Helen Frankenthaler, Stan Brakhage, Jon Waters, and David Lynch.
Favorite Musicians: The Velvet Underground, Morphine, Lou Reed, Charles Bradley, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Elliott Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nina Simone, Trentmøller, Charles Mingus, Kevin Morby, FKA Twigs, Fiona Apple, Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey, and Sam Cooke
Avery G.
Teaching Artist - Critique
Avery is a writer working on establishing a consistent writing practice with an eye toward publication. He’s currently completing a short story collection, and his next project is a pivot to writing a novel. In the past few years, he’s taken a couple of graduate school MFA-style workshops to hone his craft and learn to read critically.
I’ve been writing since I was a kid: journaling, short stories, screenplays, and even a fake newspaper!
Favorite Authors: Tove Ditlevsen, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Sally Rooney, Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, and whoever I read last!
Favorite Musicians: Arctic Monkeys, Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, Alice Phoebe Lou, Amy Winehouse, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, HER, Various Cumbia Trap Artists and House, but constantly expanding my saved artists.
Angela Gómez
Teaching Artist - Writing Group, Indie Print (Small Press Book Club - 2025)
Angela is an avid reader and emerging writer, drawn to authors who publish with small presses. She values bookstores, libraries, and museums as sacred spaces. She’s inspired by precode and 1930s Hollywood, the vibrant times of 1978-1983 in NYC and London, and a flurry of artistic post-punk visual and performance art, fashion, and music. Her favorite works focus on creative spirits, finding the spiritual in the banal and the beauty in horror, the Gothic (subculture and design), and the fight for the outsider and those who are marginalized. She is passionate about all forms and formats of storytelling, especially art that celebrates freedom of identity.
In my next life, I hope to be a book.
Favorite Authors: Kathy Acker, Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis, Olivia Laing, Cookie Mueller, Kier-la Janisse, James Baldwin, Stephen King, Alison Rumfitt, and Viviene Goldman.
Favorite Artists: Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Leigh Bowery, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Clark, Louise Bourgeois, Man Ray, Chris von Wagenheim, Nan Goldin, and John Waters.
Favorite Musicians: Marc Almond, Siouxsie, The Cure, Klaus Nomi, Tuxedomoon, Chet Baker, Cocteau Twins, Tones on Tail, Bob Marley, Kraftwerk, Liza Minelli, Nina Hagen, The Smiths, The Slits, Sex Gang Children, Boy George, and Wire.
Walter Hill
Teaching Artist - Poetry Club
“My first writing award was my dad hanging 4th grade me’s haiku in our bathroom, and he refuses to take it down. I’ve been a poet and a student of words and all the ways we can make people feel things with them for a decade plus now. I’ve dabbled in longer-form prose and screenwriting, but poetry is home.”
Walter is a poet and game developer by day, and he is always listening. His work has been published in Touchstone Literary Magazine, Oroboro Lit Journal, and APIARY Magazine. He was raised in Bowie, MD, and now resides in Austin, TX, where he facilitates workshops for the East Austin Writing Project. He finds the right words while moving through the changing city, dancing to music, and helping others.
My first writing award was my dad hanging 4th grade me’s haiku in our bathroom, and he refuses to take it down. I’ve been a poet and a student of words and all the ways we can make people feel things with them for a decade plus now. I’ve dabbled in longer-form prose and screenwriting but poetry is home.
Favorite Pens: Terrance Hayes, Ada Limon, James Baldwin, Earl Sweatshirt, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, and Kurt Vonnegut.
