Marshall Ryan Maresca was born and raised in upstate New York, and attended Penn State, where he studied film production. He is a longtime resident of Austin, TX, where he has been writing science fiction and fantasy for a number of years. His first published work was the SF story "Jump the Black", which appeared in the 2013 Rick Klaw-edited anthology Rayguns Over Texas. In 2015 he published the first of his ongoing Maradaine series: The Thorn of Dentonhill, an urban fantasy of thieves and dashing rogues set in the lively city of Maradaine. Thorn was nominated for the 2016 Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel.

Since then, Maresca has continued to write a number of different series all set within the Maradaine universe: Maradaine, starring magic university student/Robin Hood-like vigilante Veranix Calbert; The Maradaine Constabulary, featuring detectives Satrine Rainey and Minox Welling, who solve crimes on Maradaine's mean streets; The Streets of Maradaine, about the Holver Alley Crew, a gang of misfit street criminals out to protect their homes and territory; and Maradaine Elite, featuring Dayne Heldrin and Jerinne Fendall, two members of an elite order of Maradaine soldiery enmeshed in crime and conspiracy. A new series, Maradaine Saga, was launched in 2022 with the release of the novella "The Mystical Murders of Yin Mara". A standalone Maradaine novel, An Unintended Voyage, was released in late 2021.

In early 2021, Maresca published a new standalone work, a 'dieselpunk' fantasy titled The Velocity of Revolution, set in the ravaged magical city of Ziaparr.