Tribute to Tirra Lirra

Sat 7 Sep 2019

Melissa Lucashenko + Ashley Hay + Ruth Blair

Queensland Terrace, State Library of Queensland

Panel

7130

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

Jessica Anderson’s Miles Franklin winning novel Tirra Lirra by the River has had a profound impact on Australian literature. Join three writers as they tribute this incredible work of writing and celebrate the place of Queensland in Australia’s literary canon.

#Artists

Melissa Lucashenko

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Killing Darcy won the Royal Blind Society Award and was shortlisted for an Aurealis award. 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. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. Her latest book is Edenglassie.

Ashley Hay

Ashley Hay is an award-winning novelist and essayist whose work includes The Railwayman’s Wife, A Hundred Small Lessons and Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions. A former editor of Griffith Review, she also works as a mentor and facilitator, and as editorial consultant for the Climate Justice Observatory.

Ruth Blair

Ruth Blair taught American and Environmental literature at the Universities of Tasmania and Queensland. She has had a long and passionate interest in Jessica Anderson’s fiction and first wrote about her in Island magazine in 1987. She is currently writing about the idea of the garden in Anderson’s novels.

#Moderator

Fiona Taylor

Fiona is the Chair of the Brisbane Writers Festival Board. With qualifications in Economics and the Humanities she has worked across both Government and private sector roles developing policy and implementing equitable program delivery strategies. She has had a long term voluntary commitment to the education arts and aid sectors.