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In this panel, staged by the History Council of NSW at the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival, three award-winning Australian historians discuss the dual art of crafting histories and captivating narratives for diverse audiences.

Our authors, Dr Margaret Cook, Dr Shannyn Palmer and Nicole Cama, explore the dynamics of writing and presenting histories that respond to questions and ideas with relevance to national or local interest, as well as seeking to tell stories that resonate with larger audiences. Chaired by A/Prof Jan Láníček, the authors delve into the nuanced artistry required to bridge the gap between academic excellence and accessibility.

Our esteemed panelists share insights into their approaches, discussing the challenges of balancing scholarly integrity with storytelling prowess. They explore strategies for making complex historical contexts accessible without oversimplification and maintaining authenticity while appealing to diverse reader interests.

Panelists:

Dr. Margaret Cook

As an historian, Margaret Cook is fascinated by water and its interaction with humans, animals and the environment over time. She writes about climate-related disasters with a particular focus on rivers and floods and is the author of A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods. Margaret is a Research Fellow at the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University and La Trobe University.

Dr. Shannyn Palmer

Shannyn Palmer is a community-engaged practitioner, cultural consultant and award-winning writer. She works with cultural institutions and communities to facilitate ethical community engaged practice and enable meaningful intercultural collaborations. She is particularly interested in community engaged practice as a methodology for disrupting settler colonial systems and knowledge. She has a PhD in History from the Australian National University and her first book, Unmaking Angas Downs: Myth and History on a Central Australian Pastoral Station, won the 2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History and the 2023 Northern Territory Chief Minister’s History Book Award.

Nicole Cama

Nicole Cama is an historian with the City of Sydney Council with experience in museums, heritage and public history. Her work has been published across a range of platforms including radio, websites, print publications, social media, mobile applications and exhibition displays. In 2023, she was awarded the History Council of NSW’s Macquarie University-PHA Applied History Award for her work, ‘Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst’, a digital history project mapping the people and places of the street from the 1840s to the 1940s using the City of Sydney Archives, produced for the Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney.

Chair: Associate Professor Jan Láníček

Jan Láníček is Associate Professor in Modern European and Jewish History at UNSW Sydney. He received a PhD from the University of Southampton in Britain in 2011 and has published widely on the history of the Holocaust and Central Europe. He is currently completing a study of post-Holocaust judicial retribution in Czechoslovakia and also researches Jewish migration to Australia before World War II. Jan is also a member of the General Council of the History Council of New South Wales.

Thanks to the Sydney Writers Festival for enabling our participation in the festival, the State Library of NSW for providing the venue and audio recording services, and the NSW Government, through Create NSW for their funding support.

Music: Inspiring Classical by PineAppleMusic. License purchased from AudioJungle.

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