Ida Di Pastena was born and raised in Melbourne but spent her early twenties living in Italy, the country where her parents were born.

After a few years of wandering around Italy and teaching English to the locals, she came back to Australia to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree and became a qualified English teacher. She taught English to adult migrants for a number of years and later moved to teaching English in secondary schools.

She currently lives in Melbourne.

Her memoir, An Interrupted Life, was published in 2024. The Dog Park is her first work of fiction.

When she isn’t writing, she’s often walking at her local parklands and meeting up with other walkers, and dog walkers.