Deb Kandelaars was born in the Riverland, South Australia, and grew up in Adelaide's north-eastern suburbs. She graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Masters in Creative Writing. Memoirs of a Suburban Girl is her first novel winning her a Longlines residential fellowship at Varuna, The Writers' House in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2010.