Brisbane author Melissa Lucashenko has won the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Too Much Lip

Unknowingly inspired by the family secrets that came to light in her own life, Brisbane author Melissa Lucashenko’s novel Too Much Lip has just won a major literary prize worth $60,000.

Shortlisted writers for this year’s award were (L to R) Rodney Hall, Gail Jones, Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Melissa Lucashenko, Jennifer Mills and Gregory Day. Photo: John Feder/The Australian.

QUEENSLAND author Melissa Lucashenko has won Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, for her acclaimed novel, Too Much Lip.

The Brisbane writer became the ninth Queenslander to win the $60,000 prize since its inception in 1957 when she accepted the award — given to an Australian story judged of highest literary merit — at a ceremony at Sydney’s Ovolo Hotel on Tuesday night.

Having her two children by her side was fitting for Ms Lucashenko, who began work on Too Much Lip after her mother died in 2014, while also drawing on 25 years spent with advocacy organisation Sisters Inside.

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Brisbane author Melissa Lucashenko won Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, at a ceremony at The Ovolo, Sydney, on Tuesday night for her book, Too Much Lip. Photo: Justin Lloyd.

“When my mum passed away family secrets came to light so that certainly played a part but I didn’t realise how close to the bone I was writing until I plotted the book out and I was 40,000 words in and I had a conversation with a family member that kind of left me reeling a little bit, because I was writing family stories without knowing it,” she told The Courier-Mail.

“She would be absolutely over the moon (about the award). I’m just sorry she’s not here to see it.”

“Mum visited libraries religiously. It was like a second home to her, and her determination to get me the education that she was denied has led me here today.”

Ms Lucashenko was awarded the Copyright Agency Author Fellowship in 2016 to focus on Too Much Lip, her sixth novel, which is a darkly comical family saga that follows one woman’s last-ditch journey on a Harley to her home town before her father dies and she ends up in prison.

Too Much Lip (2018), from University of Queensland Press, was inspired by Lucashenko’s own family life as well as her time spent with advocacy organistion Sisters Inside.

The book, published by University of Queensland Press, was chosen over work by a mix of short-listed writers including past winner Rodney Hall, three time nominee Gail Jones, and emerging writers Gregory Day, Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Jennifer Mills.

“It means book sales obviously and a great honour, but hopefully it means I’ve absorbed a little bit of what my community elders have taught me over the years and managed to bring some of that to the page,” Ms Lucashenko said.

“Anything that encourages more Queensland writers and more Aboriginal voices is worth doing.”

While she never thought of herself as a writer, Ms Lucashenko said she always enjoyed reading, reminiscing about telling her school librarian about children’s book Misty of Chincoteague on the wooden veranda at Rochedale Primary School in grade three.

But it wasn’t until she attended Griffith University in 1990 that she developed the tools to put her thoughts down, publishing her first novel Steam Pigs in 1997.

She said the $60,000 prize would allow her extra time to pour over Queensland’s archives and talk to elders as she spent the next year researching for a new book.

“Definitely when it comes to my next book which will be a novel of colonial Brisbane, it’ll give me that extra writing time to research further and think deeper about the stories that again can bring a civilising influence,” she said.

“It’ll be set in southeast Queensland. It may focus on the life of (Australian explorer) Tom Petrie as a central character.”

Shortlisted writers for this year’s award were (L to R) Rodney Hall, Gail Jones, Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Melissa Lucashenko, Jennifer Mills and Gregory Day. Photo: John Feder/The Australian.

Queensland winners of the Miles Franklin Literary Award:

2019 — Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip

2007 — Alexis Wright, Carpentaria

2005 — Andrew McGahan, The White Earth

2000 — Thea Astley, Drylands

1995 — Helen Demidenko (Helen Dale), The Hand That Signed The Paper

1991 — David Malouf, The Great World

1980 — Jessica Anderson, The Impersonators

1978 — Jessica Anderson, Tirra Lirra by the River

1974 — Ronald McKie, The Mango Tree

1972 — Thea Astley, The Acolyte

1962 — Thea Astley, The Well Dressed Explorer

1959 — Vance Palmer, The Big Fellow