Dawn Peel lives and works in Colac. She has had articles published on the history of old age, housing and the elderly, Federation, soldier settlement, the home front during the Second World War and the role of death in community formation. While Colac’s history is drawn on in all of these, it is always used to illuminate wider historical themes and to demonstrate the potential and broad relevance of local history in this regard. Her books include Quality community care (2003) – a history of the Colac District Hospital, and Year of hope: 1857 in the Colac district (2006), which received a commendation in the Victorian Community History Awards. Her current project is a biography of Anna Bage. Called ‘Anna’s journey: a British lady in West Africa and colonial Australia’, and hopefully to be published during 2008, it outlines the adventurous life of a woman who had, amongst her experiences, spent time in the Colac of the 1850s.