Carmen was born in Santiago, Chile and arrived in Canada when she was a small child. Her family were political refugees fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship. She is an award-winning stage actor and playwright, whose work has been seen extensively in North and South America. She has written and co-written twenty plays, including The Refugee Hotel, Chile Con Carne, The Trigger, and Blue Box. Her first book, a memoir entitled Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, won the 2012 CBC Canada Reads contest and is a #1 national bestseller. It has received rave reviews in Canada and the United Kingdom, where it was named BBC Book of the Week. Carmen attended the prestigious theatre training program Studio 58, in Vancouver, Canada.