MELINA MARCHETTA is the acclaimed and multi-award-winning author of Jellicoe Road, a Michael L. Printz Medal winner; Saving Francesca; and Looking for Alibrandi. About Finnikin of the Rock, her first fantasy novel, she says, “I was told often that I couldn’t write fantasy unless I had read all the greats and knew the conventions well, but I think the first step to writing good fantasy is knowing this world we live in well. I wanted to look closely at that world—where loss of faith, loss of homeland and identity, displacement of spirit, and breakdown of community are common—because these are the scenes in today’s media that affect me the most. In this sense, the book is a search for identity in the same way that my other novels are.” Melina Marchetta lives in Australia, where Finnikin of the Rock won an Aurealis Award.