Marivi has authored 16 books and  taught creative writing at the University of the Philippines and  the University of California at San Diego. She drafted her first novel during Nanowrimo 2008. Under its original title, In the Service of Secrets, the unpublished  manuscript won the Grand Prize for the Novel in English at the 2011 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Philippine counterpart of the Pulitzer Prize. Retitled The Mango Bride, it was published by Penguin Books in April, 2013. Spanish and Filipino translations as well as a film adaptation of the novel are in development.