Clara Isabel Maldonado was born in La Paz. As a fifteen year old she won her first literary award in a national contest in Bolivia. On her arrival in Australia she settled in Sydney and in 1991 she became an Australian citizen.
Maldonado has a BA in communications and a Masters in writing for the media. From 1991 to 1995 she was editor of the literary section of the Spanish language periodical Hontanar and was involved with Tercera Edicion, the magazine of the literary group Ateneo. Also during the 1990s, Maldonado wrote a column with her mother Clara Espinosa under the pen name Madreperla, or Madre y Perla. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous periodicals and bilingual anthologies in Australia and Spain.
In April 2005, Maldonado who also writes as Bel Vidal, spent a week at Varuna Writers' Centre participating in a Residential Masterclass, working on her novel 'Exuberance'.
