Having achieved a raw score of 49 in VCE English Literature with an ATAR of 99.55 and taught poetry to students at Mehodist Ladies College (MLC), Vanessa Francesca is a freelance journalist with publications in The Age, The Australian, Artshub, Meanjin and Overland. She has worked in independent theatre for MKA: The Theatre of New Writing, Outer Urban Projects and The Stork Theatre. She has received scholarships to both Janet Clarke Hall at Melbourne University and the Dean’s Scholar’s Arts Program at Monash. Once taking her place at Melbourne university, she studied literature and international relations and won the Percival Searle Prize for Literature representing the highest marks in that year. She also produced and wrote a musical which ran for two seasons at the comedy festival. She is currently completing her master’s in Jewish Studies. She speaks four languages, with a particular passion for endangered languages.