The Prize for a First Book of History: Judges 2006

Simon Clews is the Director of Melbourne University's Writing Centre for Scholars and Researchers, the Artistic Director of Stories Alive and the Co-Director of Writers at Como. Prior to this he directed 14 extraordinarily successful Melbourne Writers' Festivals. He has written and reviewed for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Book Review and Viewpoint magazine.

Robyn Annear worked as a volunteer on the Little Lon archaeological dig in 1988, where she discovered the perfect means to blend her lightning keyboard skills, muscular physique and interest in history. After a few years as an archaeological girl Friday, she settled in Castlemaine, started a family and wrote her first book. Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne won the AA Phillips Award for Australian Studies in the 1995 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Nothing but Gold: The Diggers of 1852 and The Man Who Lost Himself: The Unbelievable Story of the Tichborne Claimant followed. Her most recent book is A City Lost and Found: Whelan the Wrecker’s Melbourne.

Graeme Davison has taught at the University of Melbourne, Harvard University, where he was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies, and at Monash University. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of the Humanities, and an Adjunct Professor in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. His main interest is in the history of cities in Australia, Britain and the United States.

He is the author of The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, The Unforgiving Minute: How Australia Learned to Tell the Time and Car Wars: How The Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered our Cities (Winner of the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction in 2004) and an editor of Australians 1888 and the Oxford Companion to Australian History. He has been active as an advisor to heritage bodies, museums and in other fields of public history where his publications include A Heritage Handbook and The Use and Abuse of Australian History. His current projects include a collaborative history of the Powerhouse Museum and a history of suburban Australia.

Clare Wright is an award-winning historian and author of Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia's Female Publicans. She is a former Executive Officer of the History Council of Victoria, has worked in politics, academia and the media, and is a mother of three. She is currently an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in History at La Trobe University, where she is writing a book about the women of Eureka.