Deborah Willis was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of the the Globe and Mail's and NPR’s Best Books of 2009, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. She was a bookseller at Munro's Books in Victoria, BC, a writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, BC, the 2012-2013 Calgary Distinguished Writers Program writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary, and the Writer in Residence at MacEwan University in Edmonton. She currently works for Freehand Books in Calgary.

Her second collection of short stories was published in February 2017 by Hamish Hamilton, the literary imprint of Penguin Random House Canada, and W.W. Norton and Company in the U.S, and translated into Italian by Del Vecchio Editore. The Dark and Other Love Stories was long-listed for the 2017 Giller Prize, won the Georges Bugnet Award for best work of fiction published in Alberta, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail, the CBC, and Chatelaine Magazine. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Walrus, The Virginia Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, LitHub, and Zoetrope.

Deborah’s first novel, Girlfriend on Mars, was published in 2023 with W.W. Norton (U.S.), Penguin Random House (Canada), Serpent’s Tail (U.K.), Bollati Boringhieri (Italy), Gads Forlag (Denmark), and Payot et Rivages (France). It was long-listed for the The Giller Prize and The Leacock Medal for Humour and shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Prize for Fiction.

Deborah was for many years a proud volunteer at The Women’s Center of Calgary and is currently learning about permaculture gardening in the hopes of creating more biodiversity and food security in her neighbourhood. She lives with her partner, the musician Kris Demeanor, and their daughter.