Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta is an Australian writer and teacher. She is the middle child of three daughters. Melina is best known as the author of Looking for Alibrandi. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. Melina Marchetta was born in Sydney on 25 March 1965. She is of Italian descent. 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 then enrolled in a business school which helped her gain employment with the... Commonwealth Bank of Australia and later at a travel agency. This work gave her confidence to return to school and gain a teaching degree. 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. Her first novel, Looking for Alibrandi was released in 1992 to much acclaim with a first print-run sellout within two months of its release.
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