Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. Let me introduce myself.
I’m Marissa — a strategic communications professional with over six years of experience helping health care, government, non-profit and resource organizations say the right thing, to the right people, at the right time. Which sounds straightforward, until a flood washes out the only road in or out of town and you’re the one making sure a stranded and frightened community knows what’s happening.
My career has taken me from the Alzheimer Society of Durham Region to a remote gold mine in northwestern Ontario (yes, really) to my current role as Communications Lead at Ontario Health atHome, where I’m trusted to lead communications projects, advise senior leaders and write the kind of materials that need to hold up to boardrooms, town halls, public scrutiny and employee intranets alike. I’ve handled crises, built communications infrastructure from scratch and caught more than a few problems before they became public ones. I bring strategy, strong writing and — I’ll be honest — a deeply held belief that storytelling is at the heart of compelling, accessible communications.
That belief didn’t start in a boardroom. I’ve published four books, including internationally through St. Martin’s Press with Avelynn, and written for local magazines and newspapers. Whether you’re writing fiction or a briefing note, good storytelling and good communications share the same bones — know your audience, respect their time and make every word worth reading.
My Official Bio:
Communications done well is invisible. The crisis that never became a headline, the message that landed without confusion, the project that crossed the finish line because everyone was working from the same page — nobody notices those wins, and that’s exactly how it should be.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade proving that doing it well — really well — takes more than good writing. It takes strategic thinking, sound judgment, the ability to earn trust in complicated environments and the nerve to flag a problem when competing priorities, personalities and deadlines are all pulling in different directions — and organizational reputation is what’s actually on the line. Those are the things I bring to the work.
I’m currently the Communications Lead at Ontario Health atHome, where I work on complex provincial health system projects — supporting the patient services and long-term care portfolio. As a trusted advisor to managers and directors, I’ve built tools and materials that help teams communicate consistently and clearly across a wide range of situations — templates, checklists, briefing materials, memos — the kind of foundational work that quietly makes everything else run smoother. When something sensitive or high-profile comes my way, I do the work to make sure it’s accurate, defensible and ready — so that when it reaches my director, the hard questions are already answered.
I hold a Public Relations Advanced Diploma from Durham College — where I graduated as the Highest Ranking Graduate with Honours and a 5.0 GPA, a fact I mention only because it reflects how seriously I take this work. I also completed editing coursework at Simon Fraser University, which explains why I will always catch that comma splice.
And yes — I’m a published author. Four books, including Avelynn, the first book in my historical fiction series, published internationally, and the award-winning self-help title Life: Living in Fulfillment Every Day. I’ve also written for local magazines and newspapers. I don’t lead with the author identity in a professional context, but it’s part of who I am — and it’s why my writing doesn’t read like it was produced by AI.
In my spare time, you’ll find me enjoying a cup of tea with a decadent square of 85% dark chocolate, trying to convince myself I don’t need a second piece.