Maris serves as the Development Associate for Texas Book Festival. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in English from The State University of New York at Geneseo. Before joining the festival, Maris worked as the Executive Assistant at The Center for Generational Kinetics, and as a ghostwriter for the New York-based firm Katz Creative, Inc. Her literary interests include literary and speculative fiction, as well as short stories and poetry. Her own short fiction has been published by Witness Magazine, Molotov Cocktail online journal and Gandy Dancer Literary Magazine, Literal Latte, and Noble/Gas Quarterly. Her story “Whale Summer” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is working on a short story collection and a novel.