Hi, I’m Mara and I write about...
…the middle of things, where love, the mind, and the body are just a little misaligned.
Romantic fiction and voice-driven essays about longing, reinvention, and tenderness
highlighting the moments where life wants to tell on itself.
Current Projects: Fiction and Essays
Different forms, same pulse & temperature
Trusting The Bridge
Currently Querying:
One burnt-out songwriter with a flight-risk history and one hypercharismatic frontman who falls first and hard take a twelve-day road trip across the Southwest, where love and creativity collide and crack open all their dark spaces.
Just A Heads Up…
Voicey, intimate essays about bodies, minds, care, uncertainty, and all the liminal things that might end up being a thing you have to actually deal with.
Mara Jane Bergen writes stories for the middle of things, where longing, tenderness, music, and misalignment somehow have something in common. Her fiction and essays return to the same charged terrain: reinvention, creative autonomy, burnout, and the intimate cost of being seen and how the body interprets that.
A former recording and touring musician turned therapist for creative professional mothers, she draws on both lives to write about what it costs to keep making something meaningful inside systems that would rather turn people into output.
She is currently querying Trusting the Bridge, a road-trip rockstar romance, and writing voice-driven essays about minds, bodies, care, and the uneasy middle where “it’s probably nothing” begins to become something more.
About Mara
Trusting The Bridge : Currently Querying
Twelve days. Two musicians. One toaster on wheels with nowhere to hide.
Tessa Vaughn is a burned-out songwriter and former wild child on the edge of freedom from a contract that has delivered nothing but chaos. She’s played the part for long enough and is ready to step out of the spotlight when a disastrous encounter with Spencer Trask, the magnetic lead singer of Wolves By Day, threatens to expose her carefully curated persona...just because he made her feel something again.
What begins as a chance meeting ignites a fast-burn, road-trip romance that unfolds across festival stages, long drives, and the quiet spaces between songs. Creative chemistry turns personal, and emotional risk becomes more appealing than either of them has ever expected. Tessa must decide whether Spencer’s just another detour…or the unexpected reason she finds her way back to herself.
💘 Instalove 🎸 Rockstar Romance 🚐 Road Trip Romance 🤍 Found Family 🧠🔥 Boy Genius × Wild Child 🛏️ Only One Bed (the Airstream) 🗣️ Misunderstanding 💪 Rolling Up Sleeves = Forearm Porn 🎓 Slutty Little Glasses 🐊 Secret Tattoos 🌶️🌶️🌶️ : Slow-burn sensuality, emotionally charged intimacy
💘 Instalove 🎸 Rockstar Romance 🚐 Road Trip Romance 🤍 Found Family 🧠🔥 Boy Genius × Wild Child 🛏️ Only One Bed (the Airstream) 🗣️ Misunderstanding 💪 Rolling Up Sleeves = Forearm Porn 🎓 Slutty Little Glasses 🐊 Secret Tattoos 🌶️🌶️🌶️ : Slow-burn sensuality, emotionally charged intimacy
Just Vibes
The playlist for Trusting the Bridge, full of songs that sound like desert highways, dusty green rooms, and festival nostalgia .
Just A Heads Up...
Just A Heads Up...
Where I write about the body, the mind, writerly weirdness,
and the thing you’ve been ignoring that becomes the most important part of your life.
Romance Manuscript Feedback
I read romance manuscripts with an eye for chemistry, pacing, emotional stakes, tenderness, and the deeper story moving underneath the plot. If you are looking for thoughtful feedback on what is working, what is wobbly, and where the book wants to open up reach out to me on fiverr.
*Booking, pricing, turnaround, and all current feedback packages are handled directly through Fiverr.
Contact
For publishing, rights, media, or reader inquiries, get in touch here.
or email me at marajanebergen@gmail.com . I read everything, and I promise I’ll get back to you!