Maura is a writer and artist. Her writing has been published in The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, On the Seawall, Fairy Tale Review, Denver Quarterly, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Following her MFA, she taught creative writing, literature, and art writing at multiple universities.

She creates social practice, movement, and media works as RAFFAELLA. RAFFAELLA’s video works include Smoke Psychology and Victory Highway, which investigate the impacts of toxins released by burning architectures on human psychology in the American west. Smoke Psychology debuted at the Tarble Art Center and was created in collaboration with Ohlone and Miwok fire ecologies.

Maura/RAFFAELLA's practice focuses on wildness, earth/femme-rage, creating ritual to alchemize eco-grief and transform it into power, and building bridges among inter-diasporic networks. She also writes about art and film. She has collaborated with composers, visual artists, and other writers on a variety of projects. She is based in Northern California.