Merlinda Bobis is a contemporary Philippine Australian writer, dancer, visual artist and academic. Born in Legaspi City in the Philippines, Merlinda completed her BA at Aquinas University and completed her post-graduate studies at the University of St Thomas and the University of Wollongong, where she went on to lecture in creative writing. She is now an honorary Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University. Merlinda is the recipient of multiple awards including a shortlisting for The Age Book of Year Award in 1999. In 2000 she was awarded the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Collection of Australian short stories for White Turtle and in 2016 Merlinda's novel Locust Girl: A Love Song, was awarded the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.

Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards! The judges described the author's lyrical prose as "transfiguring fiction". "There were many fine and stylistically accomplished works among this year's entries, but the distinctiveness, sweep and visual power of this short novel set it apart."

"It is no surprise that a dystopian novel about climate change has won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards." — Susan Wyndham, SMH

"Bobis’ story resonates not only in today’s Australia but throughout an environmentally and politically disrupted world where repression and violence are rife; where huge numbers of people leave their homes to undertake dangerous journeys in the search for life." — Alfred Yuson, The Philippine Star

On her speaking events in Melbourne and Sydney last week, feminist, journalist and commentator Gloria Steinem congratulated Spinifex Press on 25 years of feminist publishing. "Can I say thank you to Spinifex Press which is now in its 25th anniversary. It’s been such an inspiration to us." — Gloria Steinem