Marianne Manzler is a writer, educator, and editor. She is the Porch's Director of Education and supports her fellow storytellers and readers in reaching their artistic endeavors. She hopes to create a space where language, connection, and community can thrive. She is a 2025 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant recipient and 2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Finalist in Literature, Prose. Her work has been recognized by Best American Essays 2022 as a notable mention and appeared in Fourth Genre, The Seventh Wave, 5280, and elsewhere, and she has received support from Storyknife Writers Retreat, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sundress Publications, Anderson Center, and Vermont Studio Center. Within the past decade, she has served as a Fulbright scholar, AmeriCorps member, and Urban Leaders Policy Fellow.

She has over ten years of experience in managing and facilitating literary arts classes and programs for youth and adults, most recently as an education director, youth and community programs director, and founding humanities instructor at a charter high school. She earned a BA in English Literature from The Ohio State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, where she was supported by the Grace Milliman Pollock Fellowship, co-founded the Black Jaw Literary Series, co-edited The Seattle Review, and won UW’s Eugene Van Buren Thesis Award. There, her passion for fostering imagination, curiosity, and artistic communities flourished. She teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at the Loft Literary Center, Carleton College, Walker Art Center, and other academic institutions, museums, and community centers. Learn more at mariannemanzler.com.