Diana Hooper spent much of her life writing and reading, and as a young student worked on parish newsletters, school magazines, poetry and stories, and completed a novel which was never published. (Personal correspondence with AustLit.) She spent 1962-1963 in California as an exchange student. After her return she married, and was fully occupied for a number of years as a farmer's wife and a mother.
In the early 1980s Hooper took a TAFE 'Writing for the Media' course, graduating with credits and distinctions, and had articles and short stories published in a variety of newspapers and journals including the Naracoorte Herald Extra, the Australian Women's Weekly and the New Idea. She became Administrator of the Naracoorte Regional Art Gallery and was on the Board of the South East Cultural Trust.
During the 1990s Hooper developed her own business, Wongary Cottages, and through this became involved in tourism in the Naracoorte region. She chaired the Naracoorte and District Tourism Association and was vice-chair of Tourism South-East.
Some of Hooper's stories have been read on local South Australian radio stations, and she has assisted with ABC programmes set in the Koppamurra Region of the South East. She is a member of the SA Writers' Centre, the Southeast Writers' Group and the Penola Writers' Group.
