Melanie Cheng
Melanie Cheng is an Australian doctor and author of two books, Australia Day (2017) and Room for a Stranger (2019). Cheng draws upon her biracial, Chinese-Australian heritage as well as her experience as a medical professional to inform her fictional work. Australia Day is Cheng's debut fictional work. It is a collection of fourteen short stories exploring the multicultural nature of the Australian experience. It was the recipient of the 2018 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction. Her second book, Room for a Stranger, was published in 2019 and has received critical acclaim, including being longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Horne Prize for her essay, "All the Other Stories". Cheng has also published numerous articles on her experiences in general practice to journalism outlets such as the ABC and SBS. She continues to write and practice medicine. She currently resides with her husband and two children in Melbourne, Australia. Early life and education 
Cheng was born in Adelaide, Australia and moved to Hong Kong in 1986 wherein she attended an English-speaking school. She is of Chinese-Australian heritage and her biracial, Eurasian background has had a significant influence on her experience growing up as well as her writing practice. She studied medicine at a Melbourne university and graduated in 2003. Thereafter, she interned and worked in hospitals, and volunteered with an Australian-based NGO in Cambodia, before making the decision to pursue general practice. While she wrote casually for personal leisure throughout her years of schooling, Cheng pursued the craft more seriously after attending a gathering of the Creative Doctors Network organisation in Sydney. There, she "met doctors who were also writers, actors, directors, photographers and musicians" who "encouraged and validated" her work. The practice of writing became "a compulsion, something [she] needed to do", which incited her to consult Writers Victoria, wherein she attended a short story course with tutor Emmett Stinson and expanded her network, including meeting her mentor Mark Smith. Awards 
Before the publication of her two novels, Cheng  was the runner up in the Deborah Cass Writing Prize in 2016 and won the Unpublished Manuscript award in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in the same year. Australia Day, won the 2018 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, and Room for a Stranger, which was longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. 