Clem Martini was born August 25th, 1956. He became interested in writing in high school, eventually winning several awards for his short fiction. Martini graduated from the University of Calgary with Bachelor of Fine Arts in playwriting, and in 1982 he was the first to graduate in playwriting from the National Theatre School in Montreal.

After graduation, Martini taught drama and playwriting for fifteen years at Wood’s Home in Calgary, a residential youth treatment centre. He was appointed Head of the Department of Drama at the University of Calgary in 2008 and is now the Chair of the Division of Drama, Faculty of Arts.

Martini has written over thirty plays, and ten books of fiction and non-fiction. His writing spans the spectrum of young people, adults, and also texts on playwriting. He has won the Writers Guild of Alberta Drama Prize three times, is a Governor General nominee, a Seminovitch Prize nominee, and a National Playwriting Competition winner. In 2012, the book he wrote in collaboration with his brother Olivier, “Bitter Medicine: A Graphic Memoir of Mental Illness,” was chosen for the University of Calgary Common Reading Program.