Louise Wilson

Melbourne-based author Louise Wilson has 'evolved' through life experience and inclination into her current role as a researcher and writer of non-fiction books about aspects of Australian history. Her books feature careful research, lots of thinking and a focus on telling an interesting story. More recently. she has extended her writing to publish fiction as Louisa Valentine.

Writing always attracted her. During her career with senior roles in the finance sector she was the author of several textbook chapters on international finance, and wrote occasional articles and book reviews for Current Affairs Bulletin, Business Review Weekly, and Overseas Trading.

For many years she maintained a side interest, mostly voluntary, in community education. For example, she was once a high school mathematics teacher at South Dubbo and Barrenjoey High Schools; as a volunteer she worked on the National Trust Landscape Conservation Committee in Sydney, helped to establish the Cameragal Montessori School at North Sydney and ran the Scecgs Redlands Adult Education Centre at Cremorne; she was a long term volunteer with the Australian Institute of Export and then Executive Director of the College of International Business in Melbourne. In the mid 1990s she worked as a consultant to the Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology and was a member of Swinburne's Board of TAFE. This community education focus resulted in several publications, including a story on Ockham's Razor (ABC) in 1991 and the book 'Brainboxes' in 1994.

The skills she gained as a non-fiction writer explaining complicated international finance topics to the general reader have been brought to the task of writing about aspects of history. Eight books have been published since 2007, with more biographical works in preparation. She hopes her books and articles make for easy and interesting reading. They reflect her continuing interest in various aspects of community education.

Perhaps Louise could be described as a workaholic. But there has been time to 'get a life' as well. When she first married at the age of twenty, she expected to have one husband and three children. Instead it turned out to be the other way around. Her daughter has two sets of twins, at present aged seventeen and sixteen, involving her in plenty of Gran duty, so life has been busy and fascinating.

More details of Louise Wilson's activities can be found on her author's Blog and on her Facebook and Instagram pages.

And don't forget to check out her Louisa Valentine page.