Breaking ground: ADM Fellow Wins 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award

For almost two and a half years, Dr Meredith Lake got used to writing in public libraries. She went from one “hot desk” to another, trying to piece together different historical documents to create a narrative about the Bible’s role in shaping Australian culture. It was tough going for the office-less historian, especially between pre-school drop off and pick up.

All that changed, though, when she was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow in ADM’s 2017 cohort. The Fellowship “was a game-changer for me,” Meredith says. “It put around me the resources I needed to do my best work, to finish the book, and I think, to grow as a person who has something to say.”

As a result, Meredith’s book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History (NewSouth Books) was published in 2018 and has gone on to earn a number of positive reviews and prestigious awards, including most notably the 2019 Australian History Prize in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards which took place in Canberra. She also won the 2019 Australian History Prize in the NSW Premier’s History Awards, the 2018 Australian Christian Book of the Year, and the CHASS Australian Book Prize.

“The Bible is everywhere in the history of Australia since British settlement – ‘under Australian skin’, as Meredith Lake eloquently puts it – yet The Bible in Australia is the first occasion on which an historian has placed it in the foreground as a subject in its own right”, wrote one of the judges of the 2019 NSW Premier’s History Awards.

Another judge called The Bible in Australia, “a book of remarkable originality. Formidably researched yet carrying its scholarship with an enviable lightness of touch, this is a ground-breaking cultural and social history.”  

Meredith hardly imagined such responses when she was scouring documents and writing each chapter of the book during her Fellowship. “Receiving such a generous part time fellowship from Anglican Deaconess Ministries was an absolutely critical intervention,” she said when accepting her NSW Premier’s History Award. “It enabled me to keep going, finish the book, and to do my best writing.”

Shortly after  her “best writing” was published, the book began to earn the attention of the broader culture and brought numerous reviews from major media like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and others across the nation, calling it, “endlessly fascinating”, “superbly engaging” and “extraordinary”.

“From the opening words about Bra Boy tattoos, this book had me gripped,” said Julia Baird of The Drum. “It breathes colour, poetry and life into our understanding of the Bible in Australia. It’s a vital, much-needed addition to our understanding of faith in our country . . . stunning, refreshing and original.”

Consequently, Meredith has also received numerous invitations to appear in the media and deliver keynote talks on faith, history and Australian culture, including as the 2018 lecturer for ADM’s Annual Public Lecture and the 2019 New College Lectures, where she hosted and moderated a conversation between Archbishop Glenn Davies and Archbishop Anthony Fisher on the themes of faith, hope and love.

And earlier this year, the historian became a broadcaster as well when she was appointed the host of Soul Search on ABC Radio National—a weekly show about the lived experience of religion and spirituality in Australia.

“ADM is honoured to have played a role in Meredith’s remarkable story. She personifies what we hope to do through our Fellowships Program by investing in Christian women and their projects at the crucial mid-career stage,” said Dr Annette Pierdziwol, Director of Public Engagement. “Our vision is to see the public sphere filled with the voices of theologically-grounded and generous women, like Meredith. We can’t wait to see what she does next.”