Welcome to The Em Dash—

I’m Marissa and I’m delighted to have you here in my new corner of the Internet for deep chats and dance parties.

I’m a writer, a certified iPEC coach, a curriculum writer, a creative, and—as of late 2023—a recent breast cancer survivor. I’m also a 2/4 Generator with Sacral Authority, an enneagram 2w3, and an ENFJ, if—like me—you’re into that kind of thing.✨

I’ve been creating online in some form for pretty much my entire adulthood.

Between my golden era of blogging at The Modern Austen…
to my podcasting days on my show Permission to Pivot…
to my pursuit of solopreneurship with my coaching practice, Ampersand—and my whole Girl Boss content creating Era™️ in between—I’ve been exploring the possibilities that come with sharing your words, your work, and your inner world.

The Em Dash feels simultaneously like a return to my roots as well as a step into a deeper devotion to my writing and publishing practice. I am so excited to go on this journey together.

Join me as we navigate the changes in our lives and in ourselves with curiosity, creativity, and compassion.✨

In this space, we will:

• Process, reflect, and heal

• Spark ideas, make connections, collaborate, and play

• Engage, be challenged, learn, and grow

• Honor our self-exploration and self-commitments

• Feel seen and understood in our authentic humanity

I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us, together.

Why The Em Dash?

You might have noticed from the list of my online spaces above that I tend to go for a literary slant—a nod to my favorite author (and the title of my senior capstone), a delightful alliteration, a favorite punctuation mark with a deeper meaning.

The Em Dash, of course, refers to the em dash—one of my most used punctuation marks, as you can see in this very meta use—and it’s also a convenient play on my first initial.

Fun fact: The em dash is the width of an M!

The em dash is wildly useful in writing, providing additional information, description, and context to the sentence to create a richer understanding. Its design offers a clear delineation between the main sentence and the supplemental information so that it’s set apart but not so far removed that it’s unimportant or irrelevant.

This feels especially fitting for my writing style and the kind of things I like talking about—going beyond the surface level, factoring in nuance, getting curious about all of the angles and layers, surfacing what’s most important.

Since em dashes are larger than commas, they can sometimes be seen as more attention-grabbing, signaling a sudden change in sentence structure. To me, this is symbolic of the very sudden twists and turns that we experience in life—something I plan on writing about in this Substack.

I also liked staying in the realm of punctuation marks, since I still adore my business name, Ampersand, and hope to operate both in the future. (I think I may need to cut myself off there, though, so it doesn’t get weird 😂)

Ways to Read and Support

I love that this platform is reader-supported! Free subscribers can expect to receive a semi-weekly newsletter, with occasional creative breaks.

If you have the means and the desire to support me and this publication, I’d love to invite you to become a paid subscriber for $35/year. Once I find my groove in this space, I hope to include additional elements for paid subscribers, such as a monthly journaling circle, Q&As, and/or a private podcast (I’d love your input!).

You can also follow me on Instagram.