

Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in 2009, and was shortlisted for both an Australian Book Industry Award (Australian Book of the Year for Older Children) and the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards (Best Young Adult Book). Marchetta followed Looking for Alibrandi with Saving Francesca (2003), which won her a second Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award (Book of the Year: Older Readers), and On the Jellicoe Road (2006), which won her a Michael L. Marchetta was asked to develop a screenplay, and the resultant film, Looking for Alibrandi (1999), also won a number of awards, including both AFI Awards and FCCA Awards for best adapted screenplay and an AFI Award for Best Film. In 1993, this novel was shortlisted for the New South Wales and South Australian State Literature Awards, and won the Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award (Book of the Year: Older Readers). While working as a bank officer, Marchetta began writing the novel Looking for Alibrandi (1992), a story of a third-generation Italian-Australian schoolgirl who experiences love, death, and the secrets of her family's past. She then completed a teaching degree and went on to teach at a Roman Catholic high school. She later worked as a consultant for a travel company and travelled to England, China, the (then) Soviet Union, and the United States of America.


Melina Marchetta was born in Sydney and left school after grade ten to work for a major Australian bank.
