Julisa Marcel-Clarke grew up in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where she nurtured her love for reading and writing from a young age. Throughout high school and college, she was an active patron of the arts, participating in poetry and writing competitions, and acting in plays at church and her university’s Little Theatre.

In 2016, she graduated with a BA in English and minors in Communications and Fine Arts from the University of the Virgin Islands. She completed her second degree, an AA in Youth Ministry at Kansas Christian College, in 2018, and her third, an MFA in Creative Writing (fiction/writing for stage and screen) from the Queens University of Charlotte, in January 2021.

Julisa has worked as a retail assistant, restaurant associate, resort concierge, and middle school English teacher, but if she could do anything other than writing, she’d want to go back in time and play a role on her favorite TV show of all time, A Different World. When she isn’t writing, she loves to spend time with her husband, Lindon Clarke, eat new foods, and watch reality TV.