Carole Corbeil was born and raised in Montreal, where she attended French and English schools before taking degrees at Atlantic College in Wales and York University in Toronto. She was an art critic and covered theatre, books, dance, and visual arts for The Globe and Mail in the eighties. Voice-Over was shortlisted for the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1992, and was co-winner of the Toronto Book Award in 1993. Corbeil died of cancer in 2000.