Trent Dalton, Melissa Lucashenko: Celebrating Brisbane’s best writers
They’re smart and sassy with plenty of street cred – and now Brisbane writers are taking their stories to the world.
Brisbane News
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Trent Dalton’s barnstorming debut novel has dazzled Australian and international audiences alike, proving the universal power of a local story told well.
Boy Swallows Universe, about teenager Eli Bell who takes on a criminal to avenge his family and win over the girl of his dreams, is an Australian bestseller with a remarkable 300,000 copies sold since it launched in June 2018.
Trent was feted on recent American and British tours to promote the novel, which has been sold to more than 34 countries and territories and translated into languages including Polish, Danish, Spanish and Chinese.
“There are now Chinese characters used to describe Jackie Howe singlets, goon bags and rubber thongs; I find that beautiful,’’ he laughs.
“In New York, when I was in these fancy publishing offices on Broadway, it kept banging around in my head that this journey all began in a small housing commission home in Bracken Ridge.”
An adaptation of the multi-award-winning novel – which draws on Trent’s own childhood experiences – will be seen on stage next year as part of Queensland Theatre’s season.
And this very Brisbane story is getting the Hollywood treatment, with Trent set to host an American screenwriter for a three-day Brisbane tour of the novel’s landmarks including the Boggo Rd cell of infamous inmate Arthur “Slim” Halliday, Darra’s Vietnamese restaurants and the Bracken Ridge skate park, for a television series to be co-produced by Joel Edgerton.
Trent is not the only local author bathing in the warm glow of the spotlight – Melissa Lucashenko won this year’s Miles Franklin Award with Too Much Lip.
Melissa and Trent are also two of the five finalists in the state’s most prestigious literary award, the $25,000 Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance, to be announced at the State Library on November 12.
This particular category in the Queensland Literary Awards is open to any Australian author who tells a significant Queensland story or raises the profile of Queensland writing.
Last year’s winner was Jackie Ryan with her book We’ll Show the World: Expo 88.
Finalist and longtime Brisbane literary fixture Krissy Kneen shines with her captivating mystery The Wintering, involving a Queensland woman who has relocated to Tasmania.
Brisbane-based Jack Goetz is another finalist, whose four-part long-form poem Meditations with Passing Water, covers the history and geography of the Brisbane River (Maiwar). He is thrilled to be in such hallowed company.
“I hope it draws attention to Brisbane, its river and the way we, as humans, perceive and relate to the non-human world,’’ Jack says.
The fifth finalist is long-time Brisbane resident Matt Condon, now based in northern NSW, who for the past decade has made a national impact with his superb and award-winning documentation of Brisbane’s underbelly.
His latest work The Night Dragon tells the inside story of one of the city’s most infamous cold cases, involving one of Australia’s worst killers, Vincent O’Dempsey, who in 2017 was found guilty of the murder of Barbara McCulkin and her two young daughters in 1974.
“We (Brisbane writers) seem to be having a moment, we have a fabulous generation of writers,’’ Matt says.
The Gap-born-and-bred Matt was relieved to return to “Australia’s most supportive writing community’’ in 2004, after 18 years in Sydney.
“It was great to come home and have this group of ego-less, fellow travellers, who are the first to pat you on your back,’’ he says.
Trent adds: “We are beautifully connected as a storytelling town … it’s a very supportive and talented environment. Our city’s writers have had a big year.”
There is a tangled web of connections among the finalists.
Matt has mentored Trent, and Trent and Krissy have both taken guidance from this year’s Literary Award Fiction finalist Kristina Olsson (Shell). Krissy also regularly seeks out Melissa Lucashenko for advice.
“Writing in Brisbane feels like writing in a nice safe cocoon,’’ Krissy says.
“When I have trouble with something, I can call Kristina Olsson up and we can have a sunset drink by the river and nut it out, or I can grab a coffee with Melissa Lucashenko and realise that all the writers here go through the same things. I love how egalitarian our writing community is.”
Melissa, who grew up on Brisbane’s southside, where she still lives, has always felt comfortable writing in her home city, ever since she published her first novel in 1997.
“In terms of writing culture, Brisbane is a small community, your peers will knock you off your perch if you get too big for your boots, which is a benefit,’’ she says.
The State Library of Queensland’s writing and reading lead Megan McGrath says the city’s “friendly, vibrant and engaged’’ writing community is only one of the reasons for the current success of local authors.
Megan says nearly half of all short-listed authors for the Queensland Literary Awards, which are managed by the State Library, are locally based.
This year there has been a 44 per cent increase in the number of Queenslanders who entered the awards, and a 12 per cent increase in overall nominations.
“We are certainly punching above our weight,” she says.
“Writers like to celebrate each other’s successes and when you see someone achieve on the national and international stage, it is motivating.”
Megan says there is also a demand for Brisbane stories, which is being met by publishers. “There’s a real sense of people wanting to know more about the places we live … the stories in our home streets and our backyards have worth,’’ she says.
Megan praises the city’s outstanding creative writing programs at QUT, UQ and Griffith University, where young talents can build their skills and networks.
There is also the Queensland Writers Centre and the city’s exceptional bookstores led by independents Avid Reader, at West End, and Riverbend Books, at Bulimba.
Melissa Lucashenko says without the support of Avid Reader, her sixth novel Too Much Lip, about a hilarious and traumatic family reunion, may never have been written.
It was her “most difficult’’ novel to write, taking two years to plot.
“My house at the time was too noisy, I needed a place to write and owner Fiona Stager made the upstairs room available for free for me to work. You can’t put a value on that,’’ says Melissa, who previously won the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
with her novel Mullumbimby.
For Trent Dalton, a staff writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine, it took decades to “find the bravery’’ to answer his calling to write a novel.
With his Bracken Ridge housing commission upbringing, he needed to push through “an invisible wall’’ so he could see the full spectrum of writing opportunities open to him.
“At school I saw myself working at the G. James Glass Factory on Kingsford Smith Drive. You could put bets on it, that would be my life,’’ says Trent, who changed direction when his three brothers encouraged him to pursue writing at university.
“It was my brothers who taught me to dream and to help me realise I could do something with my writing.’’
And do something he did. Boy Swallows Universe is already a multi-award winner including being named this year’s ABIA (Australian Book Industry Awards) Book of the Year and the Indie Debut Fiction Book of the Year.
Trent, who began his journalism career at Brisbane News in 2000, has just finished his second book, “a sweeping love story epic’’ set in Darwin, Northern Territory.
And now, after a whirlwind year, the Walkley Award winner is just glad to return to his day job of writing magazine features.
“It’s been a wild and unbelievable ride,” he says.
The Queensland Literary Awards, Nov 12, State Library of Queensland, South Bank, ceremony livestreamed from 6pm.
Brunch with Trent Dalton, Nov 23, 9am,
Bracken Ridge Library, bookings essential,
ph: 3667 6060
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