Too much lip: Melissa Lucashenko in conversation in Lismore

The novels Too Much Lip — the latest for which she won the Miles Franklin prize — and Mullumbimby were both set in Bundjalung country in Northern New South Wales.

She will be in conversation with one of Australia's leading researchers in the area of Indigenous literature and culture, Professor Adam Shoemaker, Vice Chancellor of Southern Cross University.

Lucashenko describes Too Much Lip as “a foray into the harder edges of Aboriginal life in country NSW… inspired by the black and queer women I know who’ve done jail time, or who’ve only barely escaped that fate by the skin of their teeth”.

Tickets to the event include a copy of Too Much Lip.

In the same week Lucashenko secured Australia’s most significant literature prize, the University named her the inaugural recipient of the Barry Conyngham Creative Arts Fellowship. The Indigenous writer is spending the month of August writing and connecting with the University community in Lismore.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be at this tumultuous time in my career than back on Bundjalung country. It will be wonderful to see what the young people at Southern Cross University are doing and thinking,” Lucashenko said.

“Being in Lismore - where I had lifesaving surgery in 2004 - is a joy and a privilege that I never take lightly.”

Based in Brisbane, Lucashenko is of both Goorie and European heritage. She is a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside which advocates for women in the criminal justice system. She has been widely published as a novelist, essayist and short story writer and won a Walkley Award for her 2013 essay ‘Sinking below sight’ published in the Griffith Review.

“We’re thrilled to have a Miles Franklin award winner in residence and Lucashenko follows a formidable list of authors, including several other Indigenous writers, who’ve won this award,” said Professor Shoemaker.

Event

Melissa Lucashenko in conversation  

5.30pm – 7.30pm Thursday 22 August 2019

Enterprise Lab at Southern Cross University

Tickets ($39) include light refreshments and a copy of Too Much Lip.