Malia Márquez was born in New Mexico and grew up in New England. She has worked as a restaurant server & cook, a high school art & film studies teacher, and once upon a time was co-owner of a small tortilla company. Author of This Fierce Blood (2021) and City of Smoke and Sea (2025), she lives with her family in Los Angeles, where she is at work on her next novel.

Photo credit: Diana Feil

New & Forthcoming:

  • “Press Play” (short story), The Georgia Review~2025

  • City of Smoke and Sea (novel), Red Hen Press ~4/25

Published & Awards:

  • “The Space Between You” (essay, anthology), Becoming Real, Pact Press, 10/24

  • Winner of Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, City of Smoke and Sea (novel), 2023

  • Fiction Finalist, This Fierce Blood, Housatonic Book Awards 2022