Melissa Lucashenko

Melissa Lucashenko is an acclaimed Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Since 1997 Melissa has been widely published as an award-winning novelist, essayist and short story writer. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. Her sixth novel Too Much Lip won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance.  

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Her latest novel published in 2023 is the extraordinary Edenglassie, with a dual narrative set in colonial and contemporary times, imagining a way to a new Australian future. Edenglassie has won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Indie Book Award for Fiction, the BookPeople Adult Fiction Book of the Year and the Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance.

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Melissa is also a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. Melissa has been a script assessor for Screen Australia and Screen NSW for two decades, and has advised on multiple feature, documentary and drama projects including The Australian Dream and River. Her debut collection of non-fiction essays, Not Quite White In The Head, was published in November 2025.

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