By age 25 she had been awarded the most prestigious Creative Writing scholarships available in Mexico: from the Mexico's Institute of Fine Arts (1993–94); from the former Mexican Writers' Centre (Centro Mexicano de Escritores in 1994–95) where famous writers like Carlos Fuentes, Rosario Castellanos, Homero Aridjis, among many others also received scholarships at the beginning of their careers; and Young Creators from the National Fund for the Culture and the Arts (1995–96). In 1996 she was the first Mexican to ever be awarded an "accesit" in the International Short-story Contest "Miguel de Unamuno" in Salamanca, Spain, where her story competed against 1,708 entries from Latin America and Spain. In the anthology of the winning stories, published by the Caja Salamanca y Soria in 1997, Martha is the only female and also the youngest writer. She appears alongside writers such as Juan Manuel de Prada.