Melina Marchetta

Carmelina Marchetta (born 25 March 1965) is an Australian writer and teacher. Marchetta is best known as the author of teen novels, '' Looking for Alibrandi'', ''Saving Francesca'' and '' On the Jellicoe Road''. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. For ''Jellicoe Road'' she won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's best book for young adults.

Education and early work

Melina Marchetta was born in Sydney on 25 March 1965. She is of Italian descent, a middle child with two sisters. Marchetta attended high school at Rosebank College in the Sydney suburb of Five Dock. She left school at age fifteen as she was not confident in her academic ability. She enrolled in a business school which helped her gain employment with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and later at a travel agency. This gave her confidence to return to study and gain a teaching degree from the Australian Catholic University. She then got a job teaching at St Mary's Cathedral College, Sydney in the heart of the Sydney CBD until 2006. She now writes full-time.

Breakthrough: ''Looking for Alibrandi''

Her first novel, '' Looking for Alibrandi'' was released in 1992 with a first print-run sellout within two months of its release. Published in 16 countries, including 11 translated editions, ''Looking for Alibrandi'' swept the pool of literary awards for young adult fiction in 1993 including the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers. Dubbed "the most stolen library book", the novel has sold more than half a million copies worldwide and was followed by her film adaptation of the same title released in 1999, '' Looking for Alibrandi''.

Worldwide recognition: 2003–present

While writing the AFI award-winning screenplay Marchetta taught English, Italian and History full-time for ten years at a city high school for boys. During that time she released her second novel, ''Saving Francesca'' in 2003, followed by ''On the Jellicoe Road'' in 2006. Both novels have been published in more than 6 countries, with ''Saving Francesca'' translated into 4 languages. In its U.S. edition, ''Jellicoe Road'' won the 2009 Printz Award for "literary excellence in young adult literature".

Marchetta's fourth novel, the fantasy epic '' Finnikin of the Rock'', was released by Penguin Australia in October 2008. It has since won the 2008 Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel and the 2009 ABIA (Australian Booksellers Industry Awards) Book of the Year for Older Children, and was shortlisted for the 2009 CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers. In the USA Finnikin has received starred reviews from ''Publishers Weekly'', ''School Library Journal'', ''Booklist'' and the ''Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books''.

Marchetta has also written short stories including ''Twelve Minutes'', part of the Books Alive anthology "10 Short Stories You Must Read This Year", along with reviews and opinion pieces for ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', ''The Australian'' and the '' Australian Literary Review''. She has been a writer-in-residence around the country, as far north as Thursday Island and as far south as Hobart.

Her fifth novel, ''The Piper's Son'' was released in Australia in 2010 and is an accompanying novel to ''Saving Francesca'', but through the perspective of another character in the book.

She has been working on getting the ''Jellicoe Road'' movie script into production, while also working on writing the script for ''Saving Francesca''. In 2016, she published ''Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil''. Melina went on to collaborate with Kathryn Barker on a book ''When Rosie Met Jim/ Shoeboxes: Volume 22''. In 2019, she released ''The Place on Dalhousie''. Marchetta's most recent publications have been part of a junior fiction series entitled ''What Zola Did.''

Personal life

Marchetta lives in Sydney. Marchetta makes visits to schools to talk about her books. She also attends interviews, book signings, book club meetings at libraries and bookshops and gives talks to students about her novels. Marchetta has a blog on which she announces book updates, interviews and thoughts and anything in relation to writing and her novels.

Awards and nominations

* Won – CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers for ''Looking for Alibrandi'' (1993)
* Won – Film Critics Circle of Australia, Best Screenplay – Adapted for ''Looking for Alibrandi'' (2000)
* Won – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Script Writing Award for ''Looking for Alibrandi'' (2000)
* Won – Australian Film Institute Award, Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Looking for Alibrandi'' (2000)
* Won – BILBY Award: Older Readers winner for ''Looking for Alibrandi'' (2000)BILBY Awards Previous winners
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* Shortlisted – South Australia Premier's Awards, Children's Literature Award for ''Saving Francesca'' (2004)
* Won – CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers for ''Saving Francesca'' (2004)
* Shortlisted – Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Book of the Year: Older Children for ''On the Jellicoe Road'' (2007)
* Shortlisted – Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Young Adult Book for ''On the Road'' (2007)
* Won – Aurealis Award, Young Adult Division, Best Long Fiction for ''Finnikin of the Rock'' (2008)
* Won – Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature for ''On the Jellicoe Road'' (2009)
* Shortlisted – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Young Adult Book Award for ''The Piper's Son'' (2010)
* Shortlisted – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Ethel Turner Prize for ''The Piper's Son'' (2010)
* Shortlisted – Prime Minister's Literary Awards

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