We’re delighted to announce that historian and author Clare Wright, winner of the recently announced 2014 Stella Award, will feature prominently at the Bryon Bay Writers’ Festival 2015. They are looking forward to her insights into the often overlooked role of women in history.

Clare won the $50,000 Stella prize for her ground-breaking book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka which tells the story of the Eureka Stockade from the female point of view.

Kerryn Goldsworthy, chair of the 2014 Stella Prize judging panel, says: ‘The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka sheds a bright new light on a dark old Australian story. In her account of the Eureka Stockade and the years leading up to it, historian Clare Wright revisits that well-trodden territory from an entirely new perspective, unearthing images, portraits and stories of the women of 1850s Ballarat and the parts they played, not only in its society but also in its public life, as they ran newspapers, theatres and hotels with energy and confidence.’

In her acceptance speech, Clare announced that she would donate 10% of the prize money to be split between two organisations close to her heart, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (the Byron Bay Writers Festival charity partner) and Northcote High School.

Check out the program here: