Mari Corso entered the world with ambitions to write. Her childhood centered around her big Italian family and the Alaskan Salmon fishing season. Both were formative influences on her life. Every year, as soon as school let out, Mari and her family left Seattle for Southeast Alaska. Mari’s dad was in the fishing industry, and summer is the commercial salmon fishing season. In Alaska, Mari hiked, fished, kayaked, picked blueberries, beach combed, and rope swung into ice cold lakes. Alaska expanded Mari’s curiosity for the world around her, but when the clouds dumped buckets of rain, which was often, Mari passed the time in a small town library pouring through the aisles.
Back at home with a freshly borrowed stack of books, she traveled to Narnia, met the BFG, ventured West on a covered wagon, memorized names of flora and fauna, and explored the nooks, crannies, and cultures of the globe she hoped to someday experience firsthand. Surely the bookworm would have bitten Mari sooner or later, but for her, it was those rainy days in small town Alaska that did it.
Like many Italian families, food and family were and are synonymous. Cooking, baking, and concocting other deliciously messy kitchen adventures still occupies much of Mari’s free time and far too much of her brain space. It also explains why food appears so frequently in her writing. As the product of a practical Italian family, Mari initially put her education to its intended use for a few years. Ultimately, the desire to relocate the characters from her head onto a page won.
Currently, Mari lives in Seattle with her husband, son, and three dogs. Her interests include traveling, an array of outdoor sports (mountain biking is her favorite), cooking and eating good food, reading, dogs of all sorts, and spotting animals in the wild, especially whales (and most especially humpbacks). Mari’s day never officially begins until she spies at least one seal in the water during her morning run, a ritual she began in Alaska as a girl whenever she looked out at the sea.
Mari’s middle grade novel Found is forthcoming from Relevant Publishers LLC in 2026. Found is an coming of age story about a girl from a traveling military family who finally learns what it means to be home and have a friend you can always trust.