Marisa de los Santos grew up in Baltimore and Northern Virginia and attended the University of Virginia. After graduation, she received her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. She achieved her earliest success as an award-winning poet, and her work has been published in several literary journals. In 2000, her debut collection, From the Bones Out, appeared as part of the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series.