From humble beginnings in a church hall, where Gurry herself looked after a handful of students, there is now a thriving community of almost 200 students, as well as many volunteer teachers and tutors, who meet weekly at the St Ignatius Parish Hall in Richmond.

Wood has worked with the same girl during her whole time there, a young Vietnamese-Australian girl who was in year 6 when they first met and is finishing year 12 this year. She says she couldn't be prouder of the student or the program.

"It's such a fantastic program," says Wood, "a simple idea that has worked very well and been very successful. I'm honoured to be a part of it."

The students mainly come from Vietnam, Ethiopia, the Sudan and East Timor and it's given Wood an insight into how multiculturalism works when we're doing it right.

It should come as no surprise then, that she's not afraid to write about characters from a different cultural background.

In her previous books, Six Impossible Things, which was shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year, Older Readers, in 2011, and Wildlife, which won that award in 2014, there has been a sprinkling of characters from all sorts of backgrounds.

And now, with Cloudwish, a Vietnamese-Australian girl, Van Uoc Phan, takes centre stage as the heroine of the story. She's grappling with boys, school and there are troubles at home. Throw in a little romance, a little magic and things are bound to get tricky. A typical teenage life.

"We've got such a fantastically diverse community. You can step on any Melbourne tram and see people from all sorts of backgrounds, hear at least three languages being spoken and I think that's fantastic," she says.

"That's one of the reasons why I was interested in creating a main character from a different cultural background; [it] was to put a character out there who represents the world a little bit as it is, rather than this completely Anglo-centric and white world which we often read about, which doesn't really exist," she says.

She says it is vitally important when writing for young adults that you keep things real.

"I think it's probably one of the most important things, respecting the readership and writing honestly, not to be peddling something that is an acceptable version of the teenage years.

"Honesty is absolutely crucial and it would be a failure of integrity to write for this audience and not have that sort of respect for the readership.

"We all deserve to see honest reflections of the way life is in fiction and teenagers are no different … you grow out of the glitter stage and you want a little more grit."

Wood doesn't believe that some issues too heavy for young adult readers. Six Impossible Things touched on homosexuality, divorce and financial troubles; Wildlife looked at sex and death and loss of innocence. Cloudwish touches on depression, bullying and post traumatic shock disorder.

"I don't think there are any issues that are too big to write about," she says.

"Suicide is one that often gets discussed, whether we should be writing about it.

"Any issue is much better discussed and aired, rather than tucked away as something people can't cope with during the teenage years.

"Such things deserve to be discussed and covered in literature and kudos to schools who set challenging texts."

Wood is passionate about what is being read in schools. She's an ambassador for the Stella Prize Schools Program which is aiming to increase representation of Australian women writers on the secondary school curriculum.

"There's a huge amount of fantastic work by female writers that could be set," she says.

"Our kids deserve to hear local stories, to see local settings, and meet local characters."

Cloudwish, by Fiona Wood. Macmillan. $19.99. Buy now on Booktopia