Cirrus@Austlit

Louise Nicholas grew up in Port Lincoln, the third of five children, and attended Port Lincoln Primary and Secondary Schools before completing her schooling at Seacombe High School in Adelaide. She then trained as a teacher at Western Teachers' College and taught at Pennington Infant School. Between 1972and 1973 she travelled to South Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Israel, then taught for two years at Memorial Oval Primary School, Whyalla. She visited Italy in 1976, then transferred to the Loxton Primary School in SA's Riverland. In 1977 she had a part-time scholarship at Adelaide CAE studying Italian. From 1978 to1981 she taught Italian at Loxton Primary School, and she taught Junior Primary School children at Loxton until 2000, when she transferred to Adelaide.

She began writing in 1985 and joined the Riverland Writers' Guild in 1993. In 1995 she began attending the Friendly Street poetry readings in Adelaide, and in 2005 she was co-editor of their annual poetry collection. She was also involved in a project partly funded by ARTSA to write and perform poetry that focuses on women's health and ageing issues.