Biography

Author, editor and translator originally from Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, Martine Noël-Maw has lived in Saskatchewan since 1993. After dropping out of school as a teenager, it was her love of literature that prompted her to return to school. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in French studies from the Université de Montréal, then studied for a master’s degree under the direction of Professor Bernard Dupriez. During these three years, she collaborated in the creation of Genres littéraires et figures de style, la clé des procédés littéraires (Literary genres and stylistic figures), by researching or creating nearly 3,500 examples of stylistic figures based on Raymond Queneau’s Exercices de style.

Her work has earned her many honours, including the 2020 SATAward for Outstanding Original Script for her play Will & Ernest (published in French and English) and two Saskatchewan Book Awards (Amélia et les papillons and Dans le pli des collines / In the Fold of the Hills). She was long listed for the Prix de la nouvelle Radio-Canada 2016 and 2023 (CBC Short Story Prize), and shortlisted for the Prix du récit Radio-Canada 2015 (CBC Nonfiction Prize).  

Martine has taken part in numerous national and international literary events across Canada and in France such as book shows, tours and festivals. In 2010, she was amongst the 49 Canadian writers that contributed to CODE Canada, the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. Since 2010, her biography is included in the Canadian Who’s Who published by the University of Toronto Press.

Since the beginning of her writing career, she received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, SK Arts and the Conseil culturel fransaskois. She is a member of Communication-Jeunesse, an accredited passeur culturel for the Fédération culturelle canadienne française (FCCF), a member of l’Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ), the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild and the Conseil culturel fransaskois, of which she was president in 2014-2015. She is a past-executive board member of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. Martine has also been a board member of Éditions de la nouvelle plume, which she proudly represented at the Leipzig and Frankfurt book fairs, from 2007 to 2022. She sat on the Board of the Regroupement des éditeurs franco-canadiens (REFC) in 2020 and 2021. Martine was General Manager of Éditions de la nouvelle plume in 2022 and 2023.