Melissa Ashley is the award-winning and best-selling author of the historical fiction novels The Naturalist of Amsterdam, The Bee and the Orange Tree and The Birdman’s Wife. The Birdman’s Wife (Affirm Press 2016) won the 2017 Australian Booksellers’ Association and Nielsen Bookscan Booksellers’ Choice Award and the 2017 Queensland Premier’s Award/University of Queensland Fiction Award. It was shortlisted for the Courier Mail’s People’s Choice Award, 2017; the Australian Book Industry Awards, 2017; the Australian Book Designers’ Association Awards; and the Australian Independent Booksellers Award. The Bee and the Orange Tree was shortlisted for the Davitt Award Best Debut Crime Book, 2020.
Melissa has published one collection of poetry, The Hospital for Dolls (PostPressed 2003) and her writing has been published and featured in interviews, articles, poems, essays, short stories and reviews in a variety of media including Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, ABC Radio, ABR, Catamaran Literary Review, Best Australian Science Writing, and many others. She has participated in writers’ festivals and academic conferences as a presenter, panellist and host including Sydney Writers Festival, Perth Writers Festival, Brisbane Writers Festival, Byron Bay Writers Festival, GenreCon, Maleny Book Festival, Historical Novel Society Australia Conference, and others.
Melissa has a PhD and an MPhil in Creative Writing and a first-class honours degree in Literature from the University of Queensland. Melissa’s writing and academic research has been supported and recognised by a commendation from UQ Dean of Studies for outstanding academic achievement in the field of literature; an APA scholarship and University of Queensland Scholarship for her MPhil and PhD research; fellowships, travel and writing grants from Arts Queensland, Australia Council, State Library of Queensland, Queensland Writers Centre and others.
Melissa teaches writing courses in private and educational settings and lives in Brisbane with her family.
The extraordinary life of the world’s first ecologist …
For as long as she can remember, Dorothea Graff’s life has been lived in service to her mother, Maria: from collecting insects to colouring illustrations for Maria’s world-famous publications. While Dorothea longs for a life that is truly her own, she constantly finds herself drawn back into her mother’s world – and shadow.
When Maria becomes entranced by the plant and insect life of Suriname, she is determined to record it for herself. At just twenty years old, Dorothea decides to join her on this once-in-a-lifetime journey. All the family’s savings are ploughed into the dangerous expedition, but greatness is never achieved without sacrifice. The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname will be Maria’s masterpiece, but ensuring its legacy – and her own survival – will become her daughter’s burden. When offered a chance of happiness will Dorothea have the courage to take it, and risk everything her mother built?
“Feminist historical fiction at its best…”
“Beautiful, enchanting, intriguing…”
The untold story of the woman who invented fairytales …
It’s 1699, and the salons of Paris are bursting with the creative energy of fierce, independent-minded women. But outside those doors, the patriarchal forces of Louis XIV and the Catholic Church are moving to curb their freedoms. In this battle for equality, Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy invents a powerful weapon: ‘fairy tales’.
When Marie Catherine’s daughter, Angelina, arrives in Paris for the first time, she is swept up in the glamour and sensuality of the city, where a woman may live outside the confines of the church or marriage. But this is a fragile freedom, as she discovers when Marie Catherine’s close friend Nicola Tiquet is arrested, accused of conspiring to murder her abusive husband. In the race to rescue Nicola, illusions will be shattered and dark secrets revealed as all three women learn how far they will go to preserve their liberty in a society determined to control them.
A fascinating story that is long overdue…..
A compulsive read…
A woman overshadowed by history steps back into the light…
Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before, but her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. Now, The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit, who was so much more than the woman behind the man.
In England’s golden age of discovery, as John Gould and his peers fuelled popular imagination with their scientific findings, Elizabeth deftly navigated a world that few women were permitted to enter. Juggling an artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate and mother, she breathed wondrous life into hundreds of exotic new species. A woman ahead of her time, she continually defied convention, eventually embarking on a trailblazing expedition to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.
The Birdman’s Wife is a multi-award winning novel, and an indelible portrait of an incredible woman.
“An indelible portrait of an incredible woman”
“A thoroughly enjoyable read . . . extremely hard to put down . . . highly recommended“
Melissa Ashley 