Marra has won numerous awards for his short stories, as well as his first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, which was a New York Times best seller.

[1] Marra was born in Washington, D.C.,[2] attended high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and has lived in Eastern Europe, though he now resides in Oakland, California.

[6] He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

[3] Marra has also received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation[8] and the National Endowment for the Arts.

[2][9] Marra has contributed pieces to The Atlantic,[10] Narrative Magazine,[11] Granta,[12] The Rumpus,[13] New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic.