Michelle Schwarz is the daughter of a Polish mother and a French father. She attended Bulleen Primary School, Victoria, and later graduated from the University of Melbourne in Arts and Law (1989). She has worked as a journalist and for legal journals including the Alternative Law Journal.
In 1993 Schwarz published Richmond Community Safety Forum Report, and in 2006 she published the non-fiction book One Split Second: The Death of David Hookes and the Trial of Zdravko Micevic and co-authored, with Richard Malone, Monumental History : Ancient and Medieval Societies (2006). Schwarz's A Question of Power (2008) was shortlisted for Best True Crime in the 2009 Ned Kelly Awards.
