Marsha has received numerous awards and honours for her picture books and young adult novels, including a nomination for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year in 2007. Marsha has penned the bestselling Dear Canada book, Prisoners in the Promised Land.In 2008, Marsha was awarded the Order of Princess Olha by the Ukranian President, in recognition of her story, Enough, which described the great Ukranian famine that claimed millions of lives in the 1930s.Surprisingly, up until the fourth grade, Marsha did not know how to read! She says that after she failed a provincial test, she taught herself how to read with Oliver Twist – and it took her a year to complete. Ever since, Marsha read as many books as she could get her hands on, and had a new dream of becoming an author. After completing an English and Library Science degree, backpacking across Europe, and working as an industrial sales rep, Marsha eventually focused on writing. After a hundred rejections, her first book was published in 1996.
