Clare Wright

Clare Alice Wright (born 1969) is an Australian historian, author, broadcaster and podcaster. she is professor of history and professor of public engagement at La Trobe University. She won the 2014 Stella Prize.

Early life and education Clare Alice Wright was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1969. She migrated to Australia in 1974 with her mother.

Wright attended Mac.Robertson Girls' High School in Melbourne from 1983 to 1986. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (with honours) in history from the University of Melbourne (1991),

Career Wright was the executive officer of the History Council of Victoria from 2003 to 2004.

She was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at La Trobe University from 2014 to 2022, from which time she has been a professor of history and the inaugural professor of public history at the university.

Writing Wright is the author of a number of books which have received both critical and popular acclaim.

In her second book, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (2013), she describes the events surrounding the Eureka Rebellion and Eureka Stockade, which took place on the Ballarat goldfields in the 1850s, from women's point of view, based on several real historical figures. The book took her 10 years to research and write.

In 2019 she published You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World.

In 2024 Wright published Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions, a detailed account of the events leading up to and following the Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963. She started co-hosting the La Trobe University podcast Archive Fever with Yves Rees in 2019. She is an executive producer of Hey History!, the first Australian history podcast designed for use in schools, which was launched in 2024.

Wright created, wrote and presented the ABC television history documentary Utopia Girls

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. She 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.

Honours and awards The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka won the 2014 Stella Prize

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, You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and longlisted for the CHASS Australia Book Prize (an annual prize awarded by the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences).

She 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".

Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions won the 2025 Queensland Literary Award for non-fiction and was shortlisted for both the Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History in that year. In May 2026 it won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction as well as Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Works

Personal life , Wright was living in Melbourne. She has three adult children.