UQP acquires Lucashenko’s first nonfiction title

The University of Queensland Press (UQP) has acquired ANZ rights to Not Quite White in the Head, a collection of essays and journalism by Melissa Lucashenko, via Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Literary.

According to the publisher, the collection includes work from over two decades of Lucashenko’s career as she ‘reflects on being caught in a siege, on the marginalised lives of prisoners and the urban poor, on Blak identity, Australian literature and on meeting her writing idol’.

Lucashenko is an Aboriginal writer of Goorie and European heritage who has been publishing novels, essays, and short stories since 1997. Her most recent work, Edenglassie (UQP), won the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2024 Nib Literary Award. Her novel Too Much Lip (UQP) won multiple awards including the 2019 Miles Franklin Award and the 2019 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance. 

Discussing the new manuscript, Lucashenko said: ‘Not Quite White in the Head is my take on Australian life as a Blak, Gen X feminist. Some of these pieces I wrote when cranky, some when I was exuberant. Several I wrote when shit-scared of the reaction I’d cop. But they were all written while I was Blak and paying attention.’

UQP publishing director Madonna Duffy said: ‘Like her novels, Melissa’s nonfiction is deeply engaged with politics, activism, culture and social (in)justice. Reading this book is the most marvellous companion to her fiction. For new readers, it is also the perfect introduction to the work of one of Australia’s greatest writers.’

UQP plans to release Not Quite White in the Head in November 2025.

Photo credit: Glenn Hunt.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions