Good writing about history can be engaging, insightful, poignant or intriguing, but the underlying research will always be authentic and rigorous. The idea for The Van Diemen History Prize came out of a conversation with Associate Professor Kristyn Harman, of the University of Tasmania. Her idea honed to fit the underlying philosophy of Tasmania 40°South magazine, which is to promote high-quality writing on a Tasmanian theme, aimed at a general audience.
The Van Diemen History Prize is for articles up to 3,000 words in length, on any aspect of Tasmanian history prior to the 21st century. Entries for this new biennial prize opened in July 2018. Paige Gleeson’s winning entry this year, and the list of finalists, can be found here.
The Van Diemen Anthology 2019 contains a selection of the best articles from the 2018–2019 as selected by Kristyn Harman, Nick Brodie, Imogen Wegman and Chris Champion.
The judges, Dr Kristyn Harman, Nick Brodie, Dr Imogen Wegman, and three finalists, Paige Gleeson, Tony Fenton and Terry Mulhern, will be drawing from the Van Diemen History Prize and Van Diemen Anthology 2019, to discuss short-form and long-form history writing, and what makes for great history writing.
This session will be held on Saturday the 14th of September, at Hadley’s Orient Hotel. Tickets can be obtained here.
Top image: Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie’s Footsteps Towards Freedom sculptures, Hobart.
Supported by –
