Michelle Smith is an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Communication and Creative Arts working on the project "Beautiful Girls: Consumer Culture in British Literature and Magazines, 1850-1914." In 2013, she completed an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship on the project 'From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Print Cultures, 1840-1940'. This archival project with Professor Clare Bradford and Dr Kristine Moruzi examined how girlhoods were conceived in Australian, New Zealand and Canadian print cultures from their colonial infancy to the development of distinct national identities and literatures. Michelle completed her doctoral dissertation on British girls' literature and empire at the University of Melbourne in 2007. Her research has been published in journals including Nineteeth-Century Contexts, Women's Writing, Victorian Periodicals Review, English Literature in Transition, The Lion and the Unicorn, Continuum, Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature and in numerous edited collections. She has forthcoming chapters in The Edinburgh History of Victorian Women’s Print Media in Britain, 1830-1900 (Ed. Alexis Easley, Clare Gill and Beth Rodgers), The Gothic and Death (Ed. Carol Davison, Manchester University Press), and On Fire (Ed. Grace Moore, Punctum). Michelle's monograph Empire in British Girls' Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880-1915 was published by Palgrave Macmillan (UK) in 2011. It won the 2012 European Society for the Study of English's Book Award for best first book (Literatures in English). With Kristine Moruzi, she is the editor of Colonial Girlhood in Literature, Culture and History, 1840-1950 (2014), a six-volume anthology of girls' school stories for Routledge's 'History of Feminism' series, Girls' School Stories, 1749-1929 (2013), and a special issue of the Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies on Colonial Girlhood. She has written articles about topics including feminism, literature and popular culture for The Age, Washington Post, New Statesman, The Drum, and sbs.com.au and is a columnist for The Conversation. She maintains a blog at www.girlsliterature.com.au