Elise Valmorbida

Elise Valmorbida (1961—) is an Italian Australian writer and creative writing tutor who lives in London, England.

Having graduated in English from the University of Melbourne, and later in graphic design from Central St. Martin's, Valmorbida was creative director at The Body Shop, then at Anglo-American brand agency Fitch. She is now the creative director of Word-Design.[1]

Her debut novel Matilde Waltzing was published in 1997 and nominated for two national literary awards.[2] Her second book, a collection of true love stories, The Book Of Happy Endings was published in the UK, Australasia and America in 2007.[3] In the following year, it was published in new translated editions in Korea (publ. Woongjing) and Germany (publ. Droemer). Her short stories have been published internationally via The Ian St James Award, Carve Magazine and anthologies such as From Here to Here, Common Ground, and The Bard & Co. Her satirical novel The TV President was published by CB Editions in October 2008.[4][5] It was described in the Times Literary Supplement as "luridly entertaining fiction". Her novel The Winding Stick was published by Two Ravens Press in May 2009.[6][7] It was hailed as "a literary classic in the making" and voted book of the year by reviewer A. Brooke on literary website Vulpes Libris.[8] In 2013, the Serbian edition of The Book of Happy Endings [9] was launched by publishers Vulkan.

In 2016, The Bookseller reported that Valmorbida's historical novel The Madonna of the Mountains, dubbed "a 21st-century Gone with the Wind", was to be published by Faber & Faber in 2018.[10]

The Madonna of the Mountains was first published in spring 2018 to critical acclaim including The Times Book of the Month.[11] The cover and endpaper design by Liberty London was the first title in Faber's new partnership with Liberty.[12] The US edition is published by Spiegel & Grau, launching in June 2018.[13] Translations of the novel include Czech, German, French, Russian, Polish and other editions. At the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards it won the Prize for Fiction.[14]

Valmorbida was one of eight 'Women of Liberty' photographed by Mary McCartney.[15]

Valmorbida is a creative writing tutor at Central Saint Martin's, University of the Arts, London,[16][17] and at Arvon.[18]

In 2007, she produced Saxon, a micro-budget independent film released in 2009. SAXON toured international film festivals in Edinburgh, Israel, Europe and London's East End. The film was nominated for the Michael Powell Award (Best New British Feature) at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and won the European Independent Film Festival's Best European Dramatic Feature award.[19]

Valmorbida was honoured as a Trailblazer by the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2007.[20][21]