Melanie is a physiotherapist, PhD student, charity coordinator and mother of two from Melbourne. Girl Child is her first foray into writing a novel. Melanie has three first-author scientific publications and two second-author scientific publications from her role as a physiotherapist clinician researcher and her scientific publications have been cited over 190 times. 

Melanie met Georgina (the "girl child" from this novel) during a volunteer trip to Kenya in 2007. On her return to Australia, she partnered with her sister, Leanne, and Georgina to build the Hope Katolo Nursery School. Today, approximately 90 children attend the nursery school every year, giving them the opportunity to succeed in primary school and the hope that they may rise from a cycle of poverty. 

Melanie and Leanne remain Australian coordinators and fundraisers of the Hope Katolo Nursery School to this day, with Georgina as Head Teacher in Kenya.

Girl Child is based on the story of Georgina, recounted to Melanie over the course of weeks during a visit to Australia in 2014.