Tessa Sophia Rapaczynski was born and raised in New York City, the daughter of two crazy lawyers whom she loves very much. She began her formal education at Columbia Greenhouse Nursery School in Morningside Heights, before entering kindergarten at Brearley on the Upper East Side. After attending boarding school at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, Tessa graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a major in English and Comparative Literature. She also has a master’s in modernist literature from Oxford.
Since 2012, Tessa has lived in Los Angeles. She worked briefly as an assistant at a boutique management company, and at Warner Brothers in feature film development. In 2014, after a lifetime of striving for achievement within the context of elite institutions, Tessa paradigm-shifted. She quit her job, sold or donated the vast majority of her possessions, and began an earnest search for a purpose-driven life (and more free time to spend painting in her underwear.)
These days, Tessa teaches yoga and meditation, and leads workshops and teacher trainings. She is also a story analyst at a major Hollywood talent agency. She writes, paints, and plays a Baby Taylor guitar. Her short-term goals are to spend less time on her phone, eat fewer animal products, and finish what she starts. Her long-term goal is to stay in good mental, physical, and spiritual health, so that she can keep evolving as an artist, friend, and human being.
