Melissa Garside brings together her lifelong love of language with a deep understanding of what children love to read, drawn from her years as a teacher.
Melissa lives south of Sydney with her family, their hilarious golden retriever and some entertaining free-ranging chooks. When she’s not writing or teaching, she enjoys getting her hands dirty in the garden, immersing herself in nature and using her family as guinea pigs for her recipe-free kitchen experiments. Melissa also sheepishly admits to collecting books about words and subscribing to online dictionaries.
Melissa’s first two books in the Lexie Moon junior fiction series are out now from Riveted Press. Book 3, Lexie Moon and the Remote Control Catastrophe, is due for publication in June 2026.
WHAT CYA CONFERENCE DID FOR ME
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the CYA Conference many times since 2020 after it was recommended to me at a manuscript assessment at Writing NSW. The conference has always been informative and inspiring, and a wonderful opportunity to get together with the fabulous folks from the Kid Lit community. Since my first CYA Conference, I’ve attended countless talks and workshops, as well as participating in bootcamps, assessments and the competition.
In 2023, at the suggestion of my critique group buddy, Matt Samuel, I booked an assessment with Rowena Beresford from Riveted Press, who gave me some great feedback, and asked me to make some revisions and submit the complete manuscript. That assessment has now resulted in the publication of my debut junior fiction book, Lexie Moon & The Word Burgling Bungle, with the second book in the series, Lexie Moon & The Space Day Disaster, also being released in 2025. Book #3 in the series, Lexie Moon & The Remote Control Catastrophe will be released in June, 2026.
The Success Panel has always been one of my favourite features of the conference, mostly because it showed me that getting published was not impossible. To be able to be included amongst its successes has been a dream for me since my first CYA Conference and now I am happy to say it is a dream come true. CYA has been a major part in my development as a writer and has played a key role in my path to publication. So thank you so much, Tina and the CYA team for all of the work you do!
