Melissa Lucashenko is an award-winning novelist who lives between Brisbane and the Bundjalung nation. She was born and grew up in Brisbane. After working as a barmaid, delivery driver and karate instructor, Melissa received an honours degree in public policy from Griffith University, graduating in 1990.
Her writing explores the stories and passions of ordinary Australians with particular reference to Aboriginal people and others living around the margins of the first world. Melissa has been an independent screenplay assessor for Screen NSW and Screen Tasmania, and a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council.
A versatile and prolific author, she has published (and won prizes for) young adult novels, contemporary literary fiction, and non-fiction.
Among her awards for writing are the Dobbie Prize, the Prize for Indigenous Writing (Victorian Premier's Literary Awards), and the Queensland Literary Award (Fiction Book Award). She has been shortlisted and longlisted for the Stella Prize, the Miles Franklin, the Aurealis Awards, the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. In 2013, her non-fiction essay 'Sinking Below Sight' won her a Walkley Award. In 2019, her novel Too Much Lip, won the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
She is also a regular contributor to Griffith Review.