Valerie Martin

Valerie Martin (born 1948, Missouri) is an American novelist and short story writer.

Her novel Property (2003) won the prestigious Orange Prize. In 2012, The Observer named Property as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

Life

Although Martin was born in Missouri, she was raised and educated in New Orleans, Louisiana. She graduated from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

She has also taught at Mount Holyoke College, Loyola University New Orleans, The University of New Orleans, The University of Alabama, and Sarah Lawrence College, among other institutions.

Her other fictional works include Set in Motion (1978), Alexandra (1979), A Recent Martyr (1987), The Consolation of Nature and Other Stories (1988), The Great Divorce (1993), Italian Fever (1999), The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories (2006), Trespass (2007), and The Confessions of Edward Day (2009), as well as Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis (2001), a biography of St. Francis of Assisi. Her most recent novel, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, was published in January 2014.