Marissa Monteilh (aka Pynk)
Marissa Monteilh (Mon-tay), writing as Pynk, is the best-selling author of seven mainstream novels, May December Souls, The Chocolate Ship, Hot Boyz, Dr. Feelgood, Something He Can Feel, and Make Me Hot. Make Me Hot was an African American Literary Award nominee. She also contributed to an erotica anthology called Morning Noon and Night: Can’t Get Enough. An updated version of The Chocolate Ship will be released in August 2009, and the follow-up to Hot Boyz, called The Ladies of Ladera, hits the shelves in September 2009.
Marissa writes erotica under the pseudonym, Pynk. The first Pynk title, Erotic City, will be released by Warner Books in November 2008, and the second title, Sexaholics, comes out in October 2009.
The youngest of three and the only girl, Marissa was born in Los Angeles, California to creative parents who were both World War II veterans. Her father was a well-known tenor sax player, and her mother was an actress. At the age of twelve, Marissa was praised by her junior high school English teacher for her superb writing ability. She would sneak to read her mother’s books by James Baldwin but mainly read Nancy Drew mysteries and comic books, and hungered regularly for the arrival of her book-a-month orders at school. Though she had a zest for reading and a recognized gift of writing, Marissa, a gifted student who skipped the sixth grade, was also very good at math and after high school, she attended California State University at Northridge where she studied finance and modeled part-time. Marissa married her high school sweetheart and had three children by the time she was twenty-seven, all while working her way up in the banking industry to the position of regional operations analyst. After working in banking for more than a decade, Marissa took a position as a senior executive assistant to the President of Twentieth Century Fox, and then as an office manager for Quincy Jones Entertainment and for film directors, Tony and Ridley Scott. She also worked for the television show Hard Copy as an assistant producer where she was approached by a director at Fox news to work for KMPH as a news reporter in Fresno, California. She was praised for her news writing and encouraged to produce and host a talk show called The Opposite Sex. In the late-90’s she was a commercial actress and print model for many top companies, including Disney, Coca-Cola, and Sprint, yet she jokes that her most prized assignment was playing the part of a news reporter on The Power Rangers.
In 1998, after being inspired by relationship-type novels by Terry McMillan, Marissa wrote her first book, May December Souls, which was semi-autobiographical. She shopped the manuscript to agents and editors for two years (saved every rejection letter) before self-publishing the title in 2000, and by the next year, she secured an agent and was involved in an auction with three major publishers. She signed with Harper Collins for three books and then later with Kensington for two titles, as well as an urban title with Life Changing Books. In 2006, Marissa decided to branch off into erotica and created the name Pynk as a way to identify the erotic side of her works. She has never forgotten that defining moment when her English teacher acknowledged her writing talents years ago.
Marissa now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her family and is also trying her hand at playwriting, adapting May December Souls into a stage play, set to debut in 2010. She enjoys reading books by Eric Jerome Dickey, HoneyB, and Jennifer Gilmore, among others. Learn more at Marissa Monteilh’s website.
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