UQP Cancels Bila, A River Cycle After Matt Chun Comments
University of Queensland Press cancelled Jazz Money’s children’s book Bila, A River Cycle last week after comments by illustrator matt chun about the Bondi terror attack. The decision pushed the publisher deeper into turmoil already driven by responses to the Israel-Gaza war.
By 28 February, one author had warned UQP by email of the publisher’s impending collapse. Omar Sakr wrote to director Madonna Duffy that, “We’ve seen in recent times entire festivals collapse when authors walked out en masse,” and added, “I assure you the same thing is possible for a publisher, and it would be heartbreaking if it were to happen to UQP, one of the very few decent publishing houses in the country.”
UQP authors leave in numbers
At least 17 authors have ended their contracts with UQP or vowed not to work with the publisher again. The scale is unusual for a house that was the Australian Book Industry Awards’ small publisher of the year for four of the past five years, and it leaves the press dealing with a public split among writers it had built its list around.
The breakup followed a sequence of disputes that started in January 2025, when 55 UQP authors signed an open letter supporting Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah. The letter said she was subject to a campaign by the “Zionist lobby and its allies” to prevent UQP from publishing her novel Discipline.
Abdel-Fattah review at UQP
In January 2025, University of Queensland vice-chancellor Prof Deborah Terry was quoted as committing to a “review” of Abdel-Fattah’s book deal. Sakr later called that commitment “incredibly disheartening and concerning.” The review found nothing to prevent Discipline’s publication, but it led to another review into UQP governance.
UQP then paused printing on Sakr’s book in February 2025, weeks before release, and sent The Nightmare Sequence to an “academic expert in hate speech” for review. That review found no issue with the poems, but it raised concerns about a reference to Israel as a “Zionist entity” in George Abraham’s introduction and about an illustration showing Joe Biden as a monster with an appendage that could be construed as a tentacle.
Tony Birch’s letter
Sakr said he was “insulted, offended and humiliated” after the review. Tony Birch later wrote to UQP with what he described as a “reasonable request that in future writers’ contracts stipulate that we should be informed and consulted before a manuscript can be sent to a party outside the Press.”
After UQP refused that request, Birch said his relationship with the publisher became “untenable.” The cancellation of Bila, A River Cycle now sits on top of that sequence, leaving UQP facing authors who have either walked away or said they will not return.
