Valerie Martin (née Metcalf; born March 14, 1948) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her novel Property (2003) won the Orange Prize for Fiction. In 2012, The Observer named Property as one of "The 10 best historical novels". Early life Martin was born in Sedalia, Missouri, to John Roger Metcalf and Valerie Fleischer Metcalf. Her father was a sea captain and her mother was a housewife whose family goes back several generations in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised in New Orleans from the age of three, attending public elementary school and a Catholic high school (Mount Carmel Academy). She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Orleans in 1970 and graduated from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1974. In the 1970s, Martin took a writing course at Loyola University New Orleans taught by Southern novelist Walker Percy. Academic career Martin has taught at multiple colleges and universities in the United States, in both visiting and tenure-track positions. 1978–1979: University of New Mexico, Las Cruces (visiting lecturer in creative writing) 1980–1984 and 1985–1986: University of New Orleans (assistant professor of English) 1984–1985: University of Alabama (writer-in-residence/visiting associate professor) 1986–1989: Mount Holyoke College (lecturer in creative writing) 1989–1997: University of Massachusetts Amherst (associate professor of English) 1998–1999: Loyola University New Orleans (visiting writer-in-residence) 1999 and 2002: Sarah Lawrence College (visiting writer) 2009–present: Mount Holyoke College (professor of English) While at the University of Alabama, Martin lived a few blocks away from novelist Margaret Atwood and they became friends. Martin was the first person to read the completed manuscript of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, claiming she told Atwood that the book would make her rich. Atwood returned the favor and read some of Martin's then-unpublished works, and liked them enough to send them to editor and publisher Nan A. Talese, who has remained Martin's editor ever since. Writing career Martin's 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). She also wrote a biography of St. Francis of Assisi titled Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis (2001). Her most recent novel, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, was published in