pepperland publishing

Marisa Tellez grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, which was like a perfect grid. Each tree-lined street was a direct shoot east or west, north or south. No hills, no twists, no turns. In 1985, at the age of 12, she realized she wanted more. It was then that she discovered The Sunset Strip in Hollywood was a bustling scene of glam rock bands, local and transplants, where everyone was scraping to make it in the music scene. At 13, she went to The Whisky a Go Go for the very first time. By the age of 14, she was a regular at the clubs on The Sunset Strip. Being a tomboy, she was a bit unconventional for the wild, Hollywood scene. But after surviving the psychotic nightmare of her first boyfriend, she wasn't about to conform to anyone. She was determined to create her social standing on her own terms. Take a walk with Marisa and her friends down Sunset Blvd as she recalls what it was like being a teenager, battling through the perils of stalkers, cheating boyfriends, groupies, suicide, emancipation, arrests and debauchery during the decade of decadence.

Marisa Tellez was born in Los Angeles, California to Mexican American parents. She grew up with her two sisters in Rosemead, a suburb in the San Gabriel Valley, where she attended school and majored in English until graduating high school at the age of 17. Bored of 9 to 5 office jobs, Marisa took the leap into the entertainment world as a Production Coordinator, landing jobs on such shows as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, America’s Next Top Model, Dancing with the Stars, Punk’d and Nitro Circus. Although working on the set of these shows was exciting, the grueling production schedules left little time for her childhood passion, writing. So after seven years of freelancing, she left the world of television. It wasn’t long before she joined the gaming industry as a Production Manager for a prestigious video game marketing company and began writing her first full length novel, Rock and Roll High School: Growing Up in Hollywood During the Decade of Decadence, which was released in December 2012. Rock and Roll High School is based off Marisa’s personal journals. The book chronicles her life as a misfit teenager where she discovers the music scene on The Sunset Strip during it’s most promiscuous reign in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Also included in the book are interviews with several prominent bands that ruled The Strip during that era. Marisa still resides in Southern California and is currently working on the sequel, Walking Contradiction: The Crackpot Chronicles, which is set for release in the spring of 2014.