Maria Saba is a writer, storyteller, and arts educator. Writing in both Persian and English, she has published nonfiction and fiction. Her short story manuscript, “My First Friend,” was a semi-finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. The title story of the same collection was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won Scoundrel Time’s Editors’ Choice Award. Saba’s novella, “The Secret of Names,” won the Joy Kogawa Award for fiction and was long listed for the Disquiet Literary Prize. Her novel, “There You Are,” won an Irish Novel Fair and was a finalist for the 2023 Exeter Novel Prize. She also won the Bread Loaf Contributor Award, PEN Canada Scholarship for Writers in Exile, and the Wallace Stegner Grant for the arts.

Maria has received grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the City of Ottawa and served on various art juries. She attended Banff Centre Writing Studio, Banff Residency, residency at Al Purdy A-Frame, Tyrone-Guthrie in Ireland, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Maria holds a PhD in theoretical chemistry from the University of Toronto. Born and raised in Iran, she now lives in Ottawa.  

 http://mariasabaye.blogspot.ca

https://www.facebook.com/maria.sabaye

Maria Saba acknowledges the generous support of Ontario Arts Council, City of Ottawa, and Canada Council for the Arts as well as Chalmers Professional Development Grant in various stages of her career.