The 2019 Miles Franklin award-winner Melissa Lucashenko is set to spend a month at the Lismore Southern Cross University campus as the inaugural recipient of the Barry Conyngham Creative Arts Fellowship.

Lucashenko was yesterday announced as the recipient of the 2019 Miles Franklin Award, worth $60,000, for her latest novel Too Much Lip.

The university’s fellowship will be presented to her by Professor Conyngham, the University’s Founding Vice Chancellor, at the Lismore campus tomorrow.

Lucashenko is a Goorie novelist from Brisbane whose accolades include the Queensland Deloitte Literary Prize, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Victorian Premier’s Award for Indigenous Writing, and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award.

She is also a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside.

Lucashenko’s 2013 novel Mullumbimby highlighted diverse experiences of connecting with country through the book’s protagonist Jo Breen.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be at this tumultuous time in my career than back on Bundjalung country. It will be wonderful to see what the young people at Southern Cross University are doing and thinking,” she said.

“Being in Lismore - where I had lifesaving surgery in 2004 - is a joy and a privilege that I never take lightly.”

Lushenko will spend the month-long residency in September writing and connecting with the university community.

Southern Cross University Vice Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker said having her as Artist in Residence was a major coup for the Northern Rivers.

“This is a celebration of Southern Cross University’s long-time association with creative arts in one of the most creative parts of Australia,” he said.

“Melissa Lucashenko is a fabulous writer and a wonderful inaugural recipient of the Fellowship and would bolster the University’s already formidable creative writing academic talent.

“We’re thrilled to have a Miles Franklin award winner in residence and Lucashenko follows a formidable list of authors, including several other Indigenous writers, who’ve won this award.”

The fellowship is being launched to celebrate the university’s 25th anniversary.

Melissa Lucashenko will be In Conversation with Jesse Blackadder at the Lismore campus Open Day on Saturday, August 17, in the Zest Room from noon until 12.30pm.

A ticketed In Conversation event at the University’s Enterprise Lab at Lismore Campus will also be held during her residency. Details TBA.