Larissa Melo Pienkowski grew up outside of Boston and attended Simmons University, where she earned her degree in social work and sociology, wrote and performed poetry, and edited a number of literary magazines. After earning her MA in publishing and writing from Emerson College, she began her career in publishing by working with Beacon Press and Barefoot Books before becoming the associate publisher of Dottir Press. In 2020, she joined Jill Grinberg Literary Management as a literary agent and started her own freelance editing company.

As a professional book editor, she has had the pleasure of collaborating with individual authors as well as publishers like Little, Brown; Macmillan; St. Martin’s Press; Tor; Soho Press; Sourcebooks; Hub City Press; And Other Stories; Barefoot Books; and others on books across all genres, though she does harbor a love for genre fiction for both adults and children.

Larissa is the daughter of Brazilian and Polish immigrants and speaks Portuguese and Spanish. As a queer, mixed-race Latine editor, she is especially committed to uplifting and preserving BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodiverse, and other voices and experiences that have been historically excluded from publishing. She can also be found on the EFA, Manuscript Academy, Reedsy, and Tessera Editorial.