Judith Clarke was born in Sydney, Australia, and lives in Melbourne. She is the author of many award-winning books for young adults, including Kalpana's Dream, Wolf on the Fold, Night Train, and Friend of My Heart. "The best job I ever had," says Judith, "was as a tea-lady in a Sydney radio station. The worst was as governess/minder/parole officer of two teenagers whose parents had gone away (escaped?) for the long summer holidays." "I never made a conscious decision to be a writer; I never saw it as a profession or career. Writing was something I began doing when I was a child in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1950s... All of the kids in my neighborhood were boys, and though they let… my sister and I play with them, they pinched our marbles and comics and bashed us up. Writing stories was less dangerous." AWARDS Kalpana's Dream (Front Street, 2004) Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book in Fiction and Poetry Wolf on the Fold (Front Street, 2002) Children's Books of the Year Awards Winner-Children's Book Council of Australia Night Train (Holt, 2000) Children's Books of the Year Awards Honor, Older Readers --Children's Book Council of Australia Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Winner, Young Adult Fiction-State Library of Victoria, Australia