Cirrus@Austlit

H. H. Wilson moved to Western Australia in 1907. Her father was a mining engineer and she spent much of her life in the Western Australian outback, especially on the mining fields. Her father was killed in the First World War and although the family suffered hardship, Wilson was able to study with a Legacy Scholarship and won a bursary to the University of Western Australia from which she graduated in 1924 with a Bachelor of Arts. She was married in 1927 and took up writing in 1957. Her early writings were under the pen name of H H Wilson as she felt there was prejudice against women writers. Some of her short stories have been read on BBC and ABC radio.

The title story, 'The Skedule', from The Skedule and Other Australian Short Stories (1979), was included in the Reader's Digest Fireside Reader, which featured stories by such writers as Doris Lessing, Somerset Maugham and Daphne du Maurier. Wilson wrote the text for three of the books in the Rigby Sketchbook Series: Albany Sketchbook (1975), Geraldton Sketchbook (1976) and Avon Valley Sketchbook (1977).

Wilson was a member of the early Western Australian Women Writers Club, which was amalgamated into the Fellowship of Australian Writers in 1955. She became the first chairperson of the Society of Women Writers WA Branch in 1970. After moving to Sydney in 1973 she became active in the Fellowship of Australian Writers and also served on the Australian Society of Authors' Committee of Management.