Corbeil was raised and educated exclusively in French in childhood, and later transferred to a private English school, Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School,[3] after her mother's remarriage.[4] She spent some time as a teenager studying in Wales under the International Baccalaureate program, before undertaking university studies at York University in Toronto.[4]
First known as an arts reporter for The Globe and Mail in the 1980s,[5] she published her debut novel Voice-Over in 1992.[1] The novel centred on a documentary filmmaker from Quebec from her childhood through to her adult relationship with an English Canadian poet;[6] although it included passages in both English and French, critics praised its code switching as "done in such a clever way that the French is understandable to a person with only the basic vocabulary."[4] Voice-Over was a shortlisted nominee for the Books in Canada First Novel Award[7] and the Trillium Book Award,[8] and was a co-winner with David Donnell's China Blues of the Toronto Book Award,[9] in 1993.
In the 1990s, she wrote a weekly arts column for the Toronto Star.[10] She was also a contributor to This Magazine, Canadian Art and Saturday Night, and won two National Magazine Awards for her writing.[10]
She published her second novel, In the Wings, in 1997.[11] The novel centred on the relationship between Allan O'Brien and Alice Riverton, actors playing Hamlet and Gertrude in a stage production of Hamlet.[12] A stage adaptation of In the Wings by Nicky Guadagni was staged by Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille in 2002.[13]
Corbeil was married to actor Layne Coleman.[14] Their daughter, Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, became an actor and playwright.[14]
Corbeil died in Toronto in 2000 of cancer.[10]
