Melissa Lucashenko acclaimed Aboriginal writer of Goorie and European heritage
Melissa Lucashenko is an acclaimed Aboriginal writer of Goorie and European heritage. Since 1997 Melissa has been widely published as an award-winning novelist, essayist and short story writer.
Too Much Lip won the 2019 Miles Franklin Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance. Melissa's most recent novel, Edenglassie, was released to critical acclaim in October 2023. She is a Walkley Award winner and a founding member of Sisters Inside.
Congratulations on the release of Edenglassie Melissa, can you share with us how you came up with this reimagined Australia?
I've wanted to write about colonial Queensland for decades, ever since I first read Tom Petrie's Reminiscences, which he dictated to his daughter Constance in the very early years of the 20th century. But to simply write the history as received wasn't enough, I had to create living breathing Aboriginal people in the here and now, otherwise I'd be reproducing the Dying Race myth. That's why I split the book into current era and the 1850s. I also wanted to investigate the British society which thought it was a terrific idea to take my great grandmother off her family and try to turn her white. Writing the novel was one way to do that research and get a book done at the same time.
You've been an author for over 20 years, where do you find your unceasing inspiration?
Well, the world is a pretty interesting place! I have a powerful vision for how things can be made better, you see. Economic justice is possible, climate justice is possible, we just have to start imagining a world that is fair and sane and then make it happen. For me that's easy because we had a society like that for thousands of years before Cook. I just take those ancient principles of how to treat people and the earth, and apply them to my writing in the current day.
Where do you like to write and does location make a difference to your craft?
I have a study I write in at home, with big green industrial earphones which I found in the toilets at Sydney airport one time. I handed them in to lost property and they were still there three days later, so they're mine now. I think they might be for the workers who are out where the jet engines are running, so they are extremely good for writing in! Sometimes I write out bush in a very rustic cabin, no power, no running water, pit toilet. I like having the option.
How has the literary landscape changed over your 26+ years as an author?
You can find stories by writers from all over the world more easily now. And there are hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors rather than a small handful, which is awesome, because ours is a continent of many nations. We need a lot of voices.
What do you hope your readers get from your latest novel?
I hope they get courage, and hope, and an understanding that this is a deeply Aboriginal continent to which they can also belong, no matter what their family origin.
Interview: Freya Bennett