[1] After a career working in banking, journalism, and graphic design, Wakefield studied at TAFE and began writing.
It won the inaugural Adelaide Festival Award for Literature for Young Adult Fiction in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Writing for Young Adults in the same year.
[4] It was also shortlisted for the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for young adult fiction.
This Is How We Change the Ending, her fifth novel, won the 2020 Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers.
[12] To the River is a psychological thriller for adult readers, published in 2024.