AustLit

Wolla Meranda was known as Gert Williams in the mining town of Sunny Corner where she lived and taught for much of her life. Her first novel Pavots de la Nuit (1922) was published in French before the 1930 publication in English as Poppies of the Night. She was deeply interested in cosmology, writing Light and Outer Darkness (1935), which lists the lost titles : The World Tongue, and What Is Truth. The facing title page of The Red River of Life lists other apparently unpublished novels : 'In Mulga Town', 'The Summer Seas', 'Big Jack of Mittewa Creek', 'The Perfidy of Jane Forster', and 'Gold Dust of Mittewa Creek'. Mitchell Library has the manuscripts for 'In Mulga Town', 'Big Jack of Mittewa Creek' and another apparently unpublished novel 'Old Paddy O'Mara'. 'In Mulga Town' was an entry in the 1920 literary competition sponsored by C. J. De Garis and a columnist in The Bookfellow commented that its author was 'a contributor to the Bookfellow ... [who] has exceptional ability and in a wider field than Australia her unpublished romances would make a reputation' ( The Bookfellow 15 February 1921, p.5 ).

Meranda edited her friend Julien de Sanary's two volume collection Poesies de Julien de Sanary (1931) (q.v.). Her biography Gert: A Lady ahead of Her Time (1989) states that she paid for the publication and printing of all her works. Conceptualisations of her heroines, painted by her, were included in her novels. She also wrote a column usually titled 'Bush Calendar' for Bookfellow between 1921 and 1922.

Meranda was married twice, firstly in 1891 to George Nicol Williams who was killed in a mining accident in New Caledonia in 1904. A subsequent marriage to Malcolm E. Yates lasted only six months.