# Clare Wright

Clare Alice Wright OAM (born 14 May 1969) is an American Australian historian, author, broadcaster and podcaster. She is Professor of History and Professor of Public Engagement at La Trobe University, and was the winner of the 2014 Stella Prize. Wright has worked as a political speechwriter, university lecturer, historical consultant, radio and television broadcaster and podcaster.

## Early life and education

Wright was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1969. She migrated to Australia in 1974 with her mother.
Wright attended the Mac.Robertson Girls' High School in Melbourne from 1983–1986. Wright holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (with Honours) in history from the University of Melbourne (1991), a Master of Arts in public history from Monash University (1993) and a Doctor of Philosophy in Australian studies from the University of Melbourne (2002).

## Career

From 2004 to 2009, she was an Australian Research Council postdoctoral research fellow at La Trobe University. She was the executive officer of the History Council of Victoria from 2003 to 2004. She was an ARC Future Fellow at La Trobe University from 2014–2022, from which time she has been a Professor of History and the inaugural Professor of Public History at La Trobe University.
Wright is the author of a number of books which garnered both critical and popular acclaim. Her second book, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, took her ten years to research and write. It won the 2014 Stella Prize and the Nib Waverley Library Award and was shortlisted for many other literary prizes, including the Walkley Book Award.
In 2016, Wright won the Alice Literary Award, presented by the Society for Women Writers, for "distinguished and long-term contribution to literature by an Australian woman".
In 2019, her book, You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards University of Southern Queensland History Book Award, and longlisted for the CHASS Australia Book Prize (an annual prize awarded by the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences)
Wright was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours in recognition of her "service to literature, and to historical research."
As of April 2020, Wright writes and presents Shooting the Past, a history radio series and podcast for ABC Radio National. She has been co-host with Yves Rees of the La Trobe University podcast Archive Fever since 2019. She is an executive producer of Hey History!, the first Australian history podcast designed for use in schools which was launched in 2024.
She created, wrote and presented the ABC television history documentary Utopia Girls and created and co-wrote the ABC television documdrama series The War That Changed Us, which won an ATOM award for best factual program and was nominated for a Logie Award.
In 2019, Wright co-founded and co-convenes A Monument of One's Own, a not-for-profit advocacy group which campaigns for statue equality.
She is a former board director at the Wheeler Centre and a former member of the expert advisory panel for the Australian Republic Movement. She was on the Independent Advisory Panel of the Albanese Government's National Cultural Policy and co-wrote the policy document's Vision Statement (with Christos Tsiolkas). In August 2024, Wright was appointed as Chair of the Council of the National Museum of Australia.
Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions was shortlisted for the 2025 Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction.

## Works

* Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia's Female Publicans. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. 2003. ISBN 9780522850710.
* The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. Melbourne: Text Publishing. 2013. ISBN 9781922147370.
* We Are the Rebels: The Women and Men who Made Eureka. Melbourne: Text Publishing. 2016. ISBN 9781922182784.
* You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World. Melbourne: Text Publishing. 2018. ISBN 9781925603934.
* Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy. Melbourne: Text Publishing. 2024. ISBN 9781922330864.

## Personal life

She lives in Melbourne, Australia and has three adult children.