In 2017, Culture Bank Wollongong provided funding for the Heroines Festival, a literary festival curated by Sarah Nicholson celebrating women writers of speculative and historical fiction.
That grant has allowed that initial event to develop into an ongoing creative project Writing The Heroine.
"Writing The Heroine has a particular interest in women’s history and mythology-inspired works: from fairytale to folklore, old texts, works poetically renewed, reimagined, adapted or recreated, and speculative fiction,” Sarah says.
“It was established in 2018 with our first Heroines Anthology, an anthology of writing by women about women, and the inaugural Heroines Festival, a full-day program of women writers who reclaim women’s histories.”
“Since then Writing The Heroine has published five anthologies of writing, established a women’s writing prize, presented more festivals, author-speaking events, writing masterclasses, workshops and international writing retreats, all focused on supporting and showcasing women writers."
The sixth volume of the anthology, Witchcraft, will be launched at an event called A Day of Witches on Saturday January 30th 2027 at Coledale Hall.
The event will be themed around the history of witchcraft as a particular form of women's spirituality, the presence of witches in mythology and storytelling, and witchcraft as contemporary practice, and will include talks, workshops and readings.
Read more: www.writingtheheroine.com