About Marianne Heffernan

Marianne Heffernan is a memoirist and writer of narrative nonfiction whose debut memoir, FIERCE: From Broken to Unbreakable, tells the true story of a woman who manages everything for everyone while outrunning the grief of losing her only sister to murder. When the grief ultimately breaks her, she faces a choice: keep running or stand and fight.

She brings to this story something no other grief memoirist can: a doctorate in Humanities from Salve Regina University, with a published dissertation on grief memoir. She has both lived and academic understanding of the grief her readers carry—and she writes for those who made it through, who are standing on the other side of something hard, still holding it, still making sense of it.

Marianne came to this book after decades of living the story before writing it—and after a career spent telling other people's truths. She worked as a staff journalist at The New Haven Register for fifteen years, and her work has appeared in Connecticut Magazine and People, where she wrote about FDNY's Thomas Foley—first as one of the magazine's 100 Most Eligible Bachelors, and then, after September 11th, gone. That experience taught her something essential: what it means to honor someone's legacy and get it right. She holds journalism degrees from Southern Connecticut State University and Quinnipiac University.

She grew up in Seymour, Connecticut, a small town where the Housatonic River ran as a backdrop for youthful innocence and community connection — the kind of place where family names were familiar, supportive, lasting. It shaped how she sees the world, and what she believes is worth writing about.

Her debut talk, Fierce Love: Getting Back to Happy, is currently booking across Connecticut. Her biweekly newsletter, When the Ground Holds, reaches readers who are building something true in the middle of a complicated life.

She lives in Connecticut with her husband, Michael, and her dog, Beans.