An interview with 2020 Barbara Jefferis Award shortlistee Melissa Lucashenko

16.10.20

Melissa Lucashenko on Too Much Lip, shortlisted for the 2020 Barbara Jefferis Award.

How did you begin writing? Was there a moment when you made the decision: I want to be a writer?

I think writers are born rather than made, so it’s really better to ask when you realised you were going to be a writer. And the answer to that, oddly enough, is that at about eight years old, I was riding a horse home through the bush in outer Brisbane, and something about the tall gum trees I was riding through at dusk combined with the rhythm of the hoofbeats, and I composed a poem right there in the saddle. Still remember the spot and the physical sensations of the moment. I have no idea what it was about, and may not even have written it down, but it stands in my mind as the first time I composed an original piece of work. Of course, it took decades for me to come to fruition as a novelist, but that was the first cracking of the seed for the sprout to begin its life.

What inspired you to write Too Much Lip?

I felt an obligation to write about the hard stuff, the trauma that wreaks havoc inside the Blak communities of eastern Australia. I was inspired by the work of Alice Walker, and the examples of strong women and men in my own community, who find this violence unacceptable and also untrue to our cultural traditions. I was probably also processing some of the stuff I have lived through and seen in the last decade.

In what ways do you think Kerry Salter might be an empowering figure for women?

In every way!! Ask yourself: What would Kerry Salter do? (laughter)

What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?

The very challenging thing was knowing I was pushing back, and pushing hard, against narratives of both mainstream racism and blak (and white) patriarchy. I thought I’d get slammed hard from every side, but no – there has been an overwhelmingly positive response where I thought there’d be condemnation.

Which Australian authors have been influential on your writing?

So many. But to name a few: Ruth Park, Judith Wright, Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Thea Astley was brilliant, prickly and farsighted and brave. The early Peter Carey novels. All the classics – Allan Marshall and Colin Thiele and so on. And increasingly, my Aboriginal peers – people like Tony Birch, Natalie Harkin, Ellen Van Neerven, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Anita Heiss.