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Valerie Martin

Novelist and short story writer Valerie Martin '74 is the author of several books including the novels Trespass (2007), Property (2003), Italian Fever (1999), and Mary Reilly (1990), as well as Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis (2001), a biography of St. Francis of Assisi.  Mary Reilly was made into a film in 1996. 

Valerie is the winner of Britain's famed Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel Property, which is set against a backdrop of slavery in the South.  Property is described by author Toni Morrison as "fresh" with the writing "a marvel."  Her collection of short stories Love (1999), contains the story Surface Calm, which was made into a movie in 2001.

Valerie has taught writing at Mount Holyoke College, Sarah Lawrence College, Loyola University in New Orleans, the University of New Orleans, and UMass Amherst, among other institutions.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans describes Valerie as "a formidable writer, in a class by herself."

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Last Edited: 31 March 2009