Maria Murriel
Instructor
About Maria
Maria Murriel is a journalist, essayist and audio producer. She likes stories about family history and defiance, and she is all about empowering underheard people to tell their own stories.
She's reported on immigration, extremist politics, culture and the arts in Miami and Boston for the better part of a decade. She was born and raised in Lima, Peru, until her family moved to Miami, "the capital of Latin America." Her writing is informed by this experience of growing up bicultural in the United States, which also colors the podcast she co-hosts, Las Cafecitas.
Maria co-founded SMASH Boston, a group for women and non-binary audio producers smashing the patriarchy. SMASH hosts skillshares with the PRX Podcast Garage in Allston. Aside from teaching non-fiction, audio storytelling and narrative structures at GrubStreet, Maria teaches writing and reporting in Spanish at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and podcasting at Emerson College.
She firmly rejects the fallacy that prestige equals worth or competence. She's a proud public school grad who prefers hidden gems to institutional favorites. But for context, she'll tell you her work has won Edward R. Murrow awards for broadcast journalism and Sunshine State awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. Her audio work has aired nationwide on NPR stations, internationally on the BBC World Service, and at the local level in Florida and New England. Her written work has been published on NPR.org, the Miami Herald, PRI.org and more.
Maria lives in Jamaica Plain, where she marvels constantly at how three Cuban restaurants could exist within walking distance of each other, so far north of Miami. Drop her a line if you like cafecito.