Melissa Lucashenko

Melissa Lucashenko is an Indigenous Australian writer of adult literary fiction and literary non-fiction, who has also written novels for teenagers.

Melissa Lucashenko
Lucashenko for Griffith Review in 2019
Born	1967 (age 57–58) Brisbane, Australia
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Australian
Genre	Adult literary fiction, literary non-fiction and novels for teenagers
Notable works	Too Much Lip
Notable awards	Miles Franklin Award
Website
www.melissa-lucashenko.com

In 2013 at the Walkley Awards, she won the "Feature Writing Long (over 4000 words) Award" for her piece Sinking Below Sight: Down and Out in Brisbane and Logan. In 2019, she won the Miles Franklin Award for Too Much Lip.^[1]

Early life and education

Melissa Lucashenko was born in 1967 in Brisbane, Australia. Her heritage is Bundjalung and European (Ukrainian).^[2][3] She is a graduate of Griffith University (1990), with an honours degree in public policy.^[4][5]

In 1992, she was a founding member of Sisters Inside, an organisation which supports women and girls in prison.^[6][7]

Writing career

She has said that when she began writing seriously "there was still a glaring hole in Australian literature", with almost no prominent Aboriginal voices and with only the University of Queensland Press and a few other small outlets publishing the work of Aboriginal writers.^[8] When asked whether she considers herself primarily a writer, or an Aboriginal writer, she writes that the question runs into semantic difficulties, because the word means different things to different people.^[8]

Early work

Lucashenko's first work to be published was the novel Steam Pigs (1997), which won the Dobbie Literary Award for Australian women's fiction. It was also a short-list nominee for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize.^[5]

In 1998, she released the novel Killing Darcy, which won the Royal Blind Society's Talking Book Award for young readers^[9] (also referred to as the Aurora Prize in several secondary sources^[10]).^[a] It was also a finalist for the 1998 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel and named on the 1998 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award longlist.^[11][12]

In 1999 her third novel, Hard Yards was published and was a finalist in both the 1999 NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the 2001 Courier-Mail Book of the Year. In 2002 her fourth novel Too Flash, written for young adults, was published.

Critical success

Lucashenko's fifth novel, Mullumbimby, won the prestigious Deloitte Fiction Book Award in 2013^[5] and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing in 2014, as well as being nominated for several other awards. In 2015 it was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.^[13]

In 2019 her sixth novel Too Much Lip won the Miles Franklin Award^[14] and Queensland Premier's Award. The novel was also shortlisted for the Stella Prize.^[15][16][17] Judges called it "...a fearless, searing and unvarnished portrait of generational trauma cut through with acerbic humour."^[6] Cenozoic Pictures optioned Too Much Lip for a screen adaptation, with Lucashenko as a co-writer and co-creator alongside Cenozoic's Veronica Gleeson.^[18]

Edenglassie, a seventh novel released in 2023, won her the Queensland Premier's Award for a second time,^[19] as well as the Victorian Premier's Literary Award.^[20] In late 2024, she won the ARA Historical Novel Prize, commended for capturing "the brutal realities of colonisation while celebrating the resilience of Indigenous cultures".^[21]

Non-fiction writing

Lucashenko is also an accomplished essayist, winning the 2013 "Feature Writing Long (over 4000 words)" Walkley Award for Sinking below sight: Down and out in Brisbane and Logan. Speaking about this essay, Lucashenko said that she was partly informed by her studies in public policy: "...one thing I was trying to bring out in the piece was the odd mix of structural factors and just sheer luck, good and bad, that makes up people's lives. All of these women are poor because of the violence and because of intergenerational poverty, and those things can be attacked in policy and should be attacked in policy.".^[22]

Personal life and family

In March 2014, The Moth Radio Hour aired a recording of Lucashenko recounting the story of moving with her husband and daughter back to the Aboriginal lands in New South Wales (where her great-grandmother grew up), and subsequent divorce from her husband and mental illness of her daughter.^[23]

Nominations and awards

Year	Work	Award	Category	Result	Ref
1997	Steam Pigs	Commonwealth Writers' Prize	South East Asia and South Pacific	Shortlisted
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Christina Stead Prize for Fiction	Shortlisted	[24]
1998	Killing Darcy	Aurealis Award	Young Adult Novel	Shortlisted	[25]
		Royal Blind Society[a]	—	Won
	Steam Pigs	Nita Kibble Literary Awards	Dobbie Literary Award	Won	[24]
1999	Killing Darcy	James Tiptree Jr. Award	—	Longlisted	[26]
	Hard Yards	New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	—	Shortlisted	[24]
2001		Courier-Mail Book of the Year	—	Nominated	[24]
2013	Sinking Below Sight	Walkley Award	Feature Writing Long (over 4000 words)	Won	[27]
	Mullumbimby	Queensland Literary Awards	Deloitte Fiction Book Award	Won	[28]
2014		Miles Franklin Award	—	Longlisted	[28]
		Nita Kibble Literary Awards	Nita B Kibble Literary Award	Shortlisted	[29]
		Stella Prize	—	Longlisted	[28]
		Victorian Premier's Literary Award	Indigenous Writing	Won	[30]
2015		International Dublin Literary Award	—	Longlisted	[28]
2019	Too Much Lip	Australian Book Industry Awards	—	Longlisted	[31]
		Miles Franklin Award	—	Won	[32]
		Queensland Literary Awards	Queensland Premier's Award	Won	[33]
		Queensland Literary Awards	The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award	Shortlisted	[34]
		Stella Prize	—	Shortlisted	[35]
		Victorian Premier's Literary Award	Indigenous Writing	Shortlisted	[36]
2020		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Indigenous Writing	Shortlisted	[37]
		International Dublin Literary Award	—	Longlisted	[38]
2024	Edenglassie	Australian Book Industry Awards	Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year	Won	[39]
		ARA Historical Novel Prize	—	Won	[40]
		Barbara Jefferis Award	—	Shortlisted	[41]
		Colin Roderick Award	—	Won	[42]
		Indie Book Awards	Fiction	Won	[43]
		Miles Franklin Award	—	Longlisted	[44]
		Nib Literary Award	—	Won	[45]
		Prime Minister's Literary Awards	Fiction	Shortlisted	[46]
		Queensland Literary Awards	Queensland Premier's Award	Won	[19]
			Fiction Book Award	Shortlisted	[47]
		Stella Prize	—	Longlisted	[48]
		Victorian Premier's Literary Award	Fiction	Won	[20]
2025		International Dublin Literary Award	—	Longlisted	[49]
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Christina Stead Prize for Fiction	Shortlisted	[50]

Bibliography

Novels

• —— (1997). Steam Pigs. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702229350.
• —— (1999). Hard Yards. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702230806.
• —— (2002). Uptown Girl. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702233340.
• —— (2013). Mullumbimby. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702239199.
• —— (2018). Too Much Lip. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702259968.
• —— (2023). Edenglassie. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702266126.

YA Novels

• —— (1998). Killing Darcy. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702230417.
• —— (2002). Too Flash. IAD Press. ISBN 9781864650488.

Essays

• ——. "I'm Not Racist, but." (PDF). self-published.
• ——. "Who Let the Dogs Out?" (PDF). self-published.
• —— (2004). "Not Quite White in the Head". Griffith Review (edition 2: Dreams of Land).
• —— (2005). "Our Bodies". Griffith Review (edition 4: Making Perfect Bodies).
• —— (2005). "Globalisation, Kimberley Style". Griffith Review (edition 6: Our Global Face).
• —— (2007). "How Green Is My Valley?". Griffith Review (edition 12: Hot Air).
• —— (2009). "On the Same Page, Right?". Griffith Review (edition 26: Stories for Today).
• —— (2009). "The Silent Majority". Griffith Review (edition 26: Stories for Today).
• —— (2013). "Sinking Below Sight". Griffith Review (edition 41: Now We Are Ten).

• —— (2013). "History's Footnote, or, a Wolvi Incident". In Jane Caro (ed.). Destroying the Joint: Why Women Have to Change the World. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 9780702249907.
• —— (2020). "It's No Accident That Blak Australia Has Survived the Pandemic So Well. Survival Is What We Do". The Guardian.

List of all essays in Griffith Review

• "Melissa Lucashenko". Griffith Review.

Footnotes

1. So far no primary sources to establish exactly what this award was.