Marta is at work on her debut novel and on a narrative non-fiction manuscript.
A recipient of numerous literary honors, including the London Writers Award and grants from Arts Council England, she has held fellowships and residencies at institutions such as Headlands Center for the Arts and the Albers Foundation’s artist-in-residence program in Ireland. She was named one of 40 Emerging Writers of 2020-21 with the London Library. Her novel-in-progress was commended at the UEA New Forms Award, set up to identify “early-career authors pushing the boundaries of literary possibility.”
Her essays have appeared in British Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, ELLE, Literary Hub, The Millions, and several anthologies. Her journalism and criticism work has appeared in The Guardian, the Observer Magazine, the Financial Times, The Paris Review, Electric Literature, Literary Review, VICE, and more. In addition, she is European Editor-at-Large at Literary Hub.
She has performed and read work at numerous events, including at Studio Weil (Mallorca), Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency (California), Headlands Center for the Arts (California) and The London Library.
Marta's other projects and collaborations have included a one-day writers' retreat for women and non-binary writers, a film club, and a participatory art show. She has chaired events for the London Podcast Festival and taken part in panels at The Second Shelf, Waterstones, Elle, and Laboratorio para la Ciudad (Mexico City). She has taught writing workshops for organizations including Spread the Word and Women for Refugee Women, and appeared on literary podcasts. Content collaborations have included curating a menu pairing books and wines for a literary-themed Paris hotel, and talking to strangers on the tube for Subway Book Review.
Before creative writing, she worked in journalism for nearly a decade. In London, she was an editor at the Guardian’s Books, Arts, and Cities desks; Literary Editor at ELLE UK; and a freelance critic and editor for myriad international publications and independent magazines. Prior to that she had started out as a reporter for Catalan newspaper ARA, covering the climate crisis, the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring and the US electoral system.
She has written on topics including the deadly border city of Melilla, in North Africa; what noise does to our perception of the world; or Rosalía's breakthrough song. She was the first international journalist to write about Barcelona's superblocks project, which was later picked up by mainstream media in the US. As a culture journalist, she interviewed dozens of writers and artists, from Ibeyi to Angel Olsen, Sheila Heti to Roz Chast. Her journalistic work has received a nomination for Arts & Culture Writer of the Year at the UK's Freelance Writing Awards (2021) and a fellowship at the International Journalists’ Programmes in Berlin.
She holds degrees in Political Science and Journalism, and has proudly worked in areas as varied as bookselling (at the independent Pages of Hackney), hospitality, arts admin, and stills photography in film shoots.