Born in Golden, British Columbia in , Marina Endicott grew up in Halifax and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Toronto, Ontario. She worked as an actor before moving to London, England, where she began to write fiction. Returning to Canada in 1984, she went west to Saskatoon and worked in theatre as a director and dramaturge. She was for many years the dramaturge of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre. In 1992 she went farther west with Peter Ormshaw to Mayerthorpe, Alberta, on his first posting with the RCMP; they eventually married, have since lived in Cochrane and Edmonton, and have two children.