Bio

Maria Meindl is the author of The Work, Stonehouse Publishing (2019), and Outside the Box (2011) from McGill-Queen’s University Press, which won the Alison Prentice Award for Women’s History. Her essays, fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications including The Literary Review of Canada, Descant and Musicworks, as well as in the anthologies, At the End of Life: True Stories About How We Die and The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood. She has made two radio series, Parent Care, and Remembering Polio for CBC Ideas.

In 2022, she received her PhD from the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto for her work on the Weimar era movement teacher Elsa Gindler. She shares this research and more in The Work: Straight Talk on Craft and Method, a series of participatory talks about the history of wellness and fitness methods. 

In 2005, Maria founded the Draft Reading Series which specializes in unpublished work by emerging and established writers. Now in its twentieth season, Draft is still going strong.

A longstanding member of Toronto's literary community, Maria ran The Writing Space Press with Diana Kiesners from From 1993 to 2010. She was a member of the editorial board of Descant magazine from 1995 to 2001. Maria writes book reviews whenever interest calls and time allows. She does manuscript consultation and developmental editing for a select number of projects.

mvmeindl at gmail dot com