About Heroines

I found that women, even when they were able to struggle through the restrictive conditions of womanhood, were often not recorded by history, and when they were written about they were primarily written about by men, not by other women.

So, I became interested in how we re-story women’s history, what we do where there are gaps in the record, and how different women’s stories would be, and our idea of who women are, if women’s stories are written in women’s voices.
— Dr. Sarah Nicholson

We are dedicated to promoting, celebrating and making space for women who write women’s stories.

With this aim, we established the Heroines Festival, a full-day program of women writers who reclaim women’s histories, in 2018.

We also run author-speaking events, writing masterclasses, workshops and retreats, all focused on supporting and showcasing women writers.

As a niche micro-publisher, The Neo Perennial Press publishes Heroines: An anthology of writing by women about women. We particularly have an interest in women’s history and mythology-inspired works: old texts, works poetically renewed, reimagined, adapted or recreated, and speculative fiction.

We don’t define what a woman is. Womanhood is a site of creativity, flexibility and ongoing evolution. It is for each woman to decide how to own, define and express ‘woman’ for herself.


Sarah Nicholson

Sarah Nicholson

SARAH NICHOLSON (she/they) is the creative director of The Heroines Festival and editor of the Heroines Anthology.

Sarah is the Director of the South Coast Writers Centre, Artistic Director for the South Coast Writers Festival, and Manager of the True Story Festival.

She previously worked as an academic in the field of creative arts, religion, philosophy and literature. She has been a director of the National Young Writers’ Festival, an awardee of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for Literature, and a recipient of a Writer’s and Translator’s Centre of Rhodes fellowship. She was the 2017 Emerging Writer in Residence for the Katherine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre.

She is the author of The Evolutionary Journey of Woman and an editor of Integral Voices on Sex, Gender and Sexuality.


Caitlin White

Lore White

LORE WHITE - contributing editor & submissions manager for Heroines Anthology volumes 1-4

Lore is the editor-in-chief of Baby Teeth Journal. They are a freelance copywriter and blogger. 


Miranda Tom

Miranda Tom

MIRANDA TOM - Media and Graphic Design team for the Heroines Festival 2019 & 2020

Miranda has a Bachelor of Creative Arts and majoring in Visual Arts and Graphic Design, Miranda has delved into a vast range of creative outlets including painting, digital illustration, print media and textile design. Throughout her university education, she has explored issues surrounding the environment and feminism and continues to use these topics as conceptual stimuli for her creative works.


Emily Hipsley-Davidson

Emily Hipsley-Davidson

EMILY HIPSELY-DAVIDSON - Literary Arts Event Production Intern for Heroines Festival 2020.

Emily is an arts administrator living and working on Wangal land in Sydney’s Inner West, and the event producer intern for Heroines Festival 2020. Her creative writing has been featured in the University of New South Wales’ UNSWeetened literary anthology, and she completed her English Honours thesis on temporality in the works of Virginia Woolf. She is currently completing a Masters of Curatorial and Cultural Leadership, with interests in audience engagement and public programming. 


Allison Kristina Ho

Allison Kristina Ho

ALLISON KRISTINA HO - Video and Event Production Intern for Heroines Festival 2020.

Allison is a video editor based in South West Sydney, and is the Video Production intern for Heroines Festival 2020. Allison has a Bachelor of Communications, majoring in Journalism, and is passionate about visual storytelling. Her short documentary was published on the University of Technology Sydney’s multiplatform news service, Central News. She is currently working in media and communications for a range of different non-profit organisations.  


Liz Raleigh

Liz Raleigh

LIZ RALEIGH - Sponsorship Manager for Heroines Festival 2020.

Liz is an experienced Marketing and Sponsorship Manager. She has worked in the arts in Sydney and Ireland for the past two decades, including publishing, live music, theatre and festivals. A passionate reader, her claim to fame is finishing Ulysses. It took her six months.


We acknowledge the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal nation who are the traditional custodians of the sovereign and unceded land where The Heroines Festival and Anthology is produced.