Congratulations to Shannyn Palmer, winner of the 2024 Ernest Scott Prize. Shannyn’s Unmaking Angas Downs: Myth and History on a Central Australian Pastoral Station (MUP, 2022) was selected from a body of 54 nominations. Judges Grace Karskens and Frank Bongiorno celebrated Shannyn’s ‘tenacious dedication to listening carefully’ and the ‘mesmerising prose’ of the book. In accepting the award, Shannyn expressed a ‘deep sense of gratitude to Tjuki Tjukanku Pumpjack and Sandra Armstrong’ whose stories ‘are the beating heart of this book’.
Congratulations also to Alecia Simmonds and Alexandra Roginski, whose works received Special Commendations. Alecia’s Courting: An Intimate History of Love and the Law (Black Inc Books, 2023) was praised as ‘a startlingly original book’ characterised by its ‘detailed contextual research and sparkling, empathic prose’. Alexandra’s Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World (Cambridge University Press, 2023) was described as a ‘rich, accomplished and beautifully written study’ that explains how ‘interwoven strands of gender, race and class intersected with science and power in the places where empire and colonies were actually made’.
AHA members Linda Bryder (The Best Country to Give Birth?, Auckland University Press, 2023), Kate Fullagar (Bennelong & Phillip, Scribner, 2023) and Laura Rademaker (with Mavis Kerinaiua, Tiwi Story, NewSouth, 2023) were all shortlisted for the prize. Congratulations Shannyn, Alecia, Alexandra and all!