Over three days in April, HerStory, a new arts festival celebrating female voices hosted in Sydney’s Walsh Bay, aims to “ignite conversation, foster creativity, and uplift voices that have long been overlooked”.

The festivals inaugural lineup includes the world premiere of The Amazing Lucas Girls, the one-woman show Abigail Williams, musical performances, visual art exhibitions and literature showcases.

Cate Whittaker is the Sydney-based playwright of The Amazing Lucas Girls, and one of the festival organisers. She talks to Limelight about what’s in store for the inaugural program.

How did HerStory come about?

Lost Voices Australia Inc NFP, the producers of the Festival, have for the last few years been providing a platform for emerging artists work by giving voice to women’s stories lost in HIStory through powerful plays like Forgotten (two sellout seasons at the Riverside Lennox) on the female convict rebellion in Parramatta, and Jane Franklin and The Rajah Quilt premiering at Theatre Royal Hobert. At the same they were uncovering memoirs of young girls forcibly incarcerated in Kambala Special Unit Remand Centre. The two founding members were part of the NSW Writing Centres Women’s Writers group full of poets, memoirists and short story tellers. It seemed...