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#Performances
#About the event
Duration: 60 minutes
First Word formally opens the Brisbane Writers Festival each year. To celebrate the vibrant tradition of Australia’s first storytellers, the session showcases a keynote speech by an eminent First Nations writer. In 2024, that writer is Miles Franklin award winner Melissa Lucashenko, whose extraordinary body of work includes Edenglassie, Mullumbimby and Too Much Lip. Please join us for the official opening of the 2024 Brisbane Writers Festival.
Supported by The University of Queensland
#Artist
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.