MELISS FONG How I became whole again

Once notoriously private, Melissa Leong is finally opening up about the traumatic events of her past, in the hope that sharing her stories can help others.

- WORDS by GENEVIEVE GANNON PHOTOGRAPHY by CORRIE BOND STYLING by MATTIE CRONAN

Melissa Leong would like to go to Iceland.

It’s an offhand comment, made at the end of a long and tear-streaked conversation about her memoir, Guts, in answer to a question about the future. Does she have some concrete goals, or will she go where the wind takes her? Melissa says it will be a little of column A and a little of column B.

“I think you should always leave space for life to happen and for unique offers to come your way,” she says. “Send me to the farthest places that I can imagine and have me do the most unlikely of things and you will probably find that I will say yes.”

She singles out Iceland. So we are putting that desire in print and out into the world, because not only would Melissa bring her characteristic rigour and curiosity to an Icelandic food project, but when you get to the end of her courageous and revealing memoir you feel compelled to lead by her example and spread generosity.

Over 320-odd pages, written in a six-week blaze of creative fury, the food writer best known for her four-seasons stint on MasterChef Australia has cracked open her rib cage and shown us her heart. Melissa forged into the project with the same fearlessness with which she learnt to skin a rabbit in Tasmania and gives an unflinching account of her unconventional path.