Maria Saba

An Ottawa-based writer, storyteller, and arts educator, Maria Saba was born and raised in Iran. She has published three books and more than a hundred articles, interviews, and stories on four continents. Maria’s short story collection, My First Friend, was a semi-finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, and the title story, published in Scoundrel Time, won the Editor’s Choice Award and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her novella, The Secret of Names, was longlisted for the 2020 Disquiet Literary Prize.

Maria has served on various arts and literature juries and is the recipient of grants in English literature from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. She attended Banff Writing Studio and residencies at Banff, Al Purdy A-Frame in Ameliasburgh, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. She recently won the PEN Canada Scholarship and the Wallace Stegner Grant for the Arts. Currently, Maria is working on her debut novel, There You Are.

Maria Saba was in residence at Historic Joy Kogawa House in May and June 2021. During her residency, she hosted a literary reading about letters and letter-writing and a follow-up workshop, on personal letters as inspiration for creative writing.

Visit Maria at mariasaba.ca and mariasabaye.blogspot.ca