The Orana Every Woman Festival · Annual Creative Programme · Dubbo NSW
Inspired
by Her
A creative programme inviting women artists and writers to make new work inspired by the lives, voices and stories of women from our region’s past. Every year. One night only. On Wiradjuri Country.
Archive
2026 · 2027 — coming
The brief
A brief that belongs
to every woman
who picks it up
Inspired by Her begins with a simple question: whose stories aren’t being told? And what happens when women ~ writers, artists, performers, makers ~ are given space, time and support to answer that question in their own way?
Each year the programme runs a call-out to local women creatives, offering research support, workshops and a small stipend to create new visual or written work. Those works are exhibited as part of the festival ~ and on opening night, they share the stage with artists who have spent their careers doing exactly the same thing at the highest level.
The brief doesn’t change. Inspired by Her. What you make from it is entirely yours.
How the programme works
Research & Inspiration
Author talks. Local history sessions. Women invited to uncover the stories hiding in archives, family memories and regional history.
The Call-Out
Open call for local women writers and visual artists. Short works. Any form. One brief: Inspired by Her.
The Exhibition
Selected works exhibited during the festival. Written works recorded by local women voice artists. A guided workshop inviting audiences to respond and create.
Opening Night
One night only. Headline artists who have spent their careers answering the same brief ~ on stage, in conversation with the exhibition and with each other.
2026
Opening Night
Monday 2 March 2026 · 7pm
Macquarie Conservatorium, Dubbo
Opened with a Wiradjuri Welcome to Country
by Aunty Diane McNaboe
Historical Fiction · Novelist
Eleanor
Limprecht
Eleanor Limprecht has spent her career doing what Inspired by Her asks of every woman who takes up the brief ~ excavating the lives of women history nearly forgot, and bringing them back in full.
Her novels ~ What Was Left, Long Bay, The Passengers, The Coast and Cul de Sac ~ are works of deep research and deep feeling. Women who were overlooked, silenced or simply not written down. Eleanor writes them back into existence.
For the 2026 programme, Eleanor led the research and inspiration phase ~ an online author talk on using historical events to spark creative fiction, open to all women in the region. She joined the opening night to bring her work into conversation with the local women who had answered the same brief in their own way.
Eleanor Limprecht returns as a creative anchor of Inspired by Her.
Performer · Musical Theatre · Storyteller
Rachael Beck
One of Australia’s most celebrated stage performers ~ Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret ~ Rachael brings her Sydney Festival work In Her Own Words to Dubbo. Music and storytelling woven around extraordinary women. Performed with local musicians for a one-off collaboration that exists only here, only once.
Rachael Beck returns to Inspired by Her.
Curator · Writer · Creative Practitioner · Dubbo
Erifili Davies
Dubbo’s 2024 Cultural Person of the Year. Curator of the Inspired by Her exhibition. Writer of Tin Town Tess. The person who held the brief for the whole programme ~ and then answered it herself. Erifili is the creative heart of Inspired by Her, the connective tissue between the headline stage and the local exhibition.
Erifili Davies is a founding creative of Inspired by Her.
In the curator’s words
“Events held as part of International Women’s Day often focus on women’s health, finance, or carry a corporate lens. These are all important, of course ~ but working with Sharon Quill and the 2026 Orana Every Woman Festival, I wanted to bring a creative element to the conversation. One that honoured the experience of womanhood in all its forms.”
The works were united by place. Some spoke directly to history. Others reflected on women’s interactions with the world ~ exploring identity, resilience, expectation and belonging. Together, they created a conversation between past and present.
For one participant, the process of creating her piece became a way of working through complicated, conflicting feelings about generational relationships. Another artist found that her work for the exhibition inspired her to expand the concept into a full exhibition of its own.
Conversations with audiences suggest many women left feeling inspired to start or continue their own creative journeys. That was exactly the aim.
Erifili Davies — Curator, Inspired by Her 2026
Inspired by Her 2026
The Exhibition
Eight local women. Eight responses to the same brief. Visual art, textile, photography, monologue, poem, reflection, rumination. Curated by Erifili Davies. Exhibited at Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo.
Inspired by Her 2027
The brief
is open again.
Monday 8 March 2027 · International Women’s Day · Dubbo NSW
We are developing the 2027 programme now. If you are a woman writer, artist or creative practitioner from the Orana region ~ or a regional woman whose story deserves to be told ~ we want to hear from you.
Inspired by Her is a programme of
The Orana Every Woman Festival
Dubbo NSW · Wiradjuri Country
Curated by Erifili Davies & Sharon Quill
A Social Gain initiative
© 2026 Social Gain · ABN 79 090 976 118
sharon@socialgain.com.au