Thanks to her father’s Air Force career, Louisa Cornell spent three years of her childhood in a little English village in Suffolk. Those years set off her lifelong love affair with all things British. Two retired librarians in the cottage next door introduced her to the works of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and Georgette Heyer. When it comes to her addiction to reading and writing Regency romance, Louisa never stood a chance.

Three decades later, after retiring from a European career as an opera singer and returning to the United States, Louisa took up her pen and set sail on her second career, but first love, writing Regency romance. A two-time Golden Heart finalist, three-time Daphne du Maurier winner, and four-time Royal Ascot winner—she is a member of RWA, Southern Magic RWA, and Regency Fiction Writers. She is both indie published and published by Scarsdale Publishing. Her first published work, the novella A Perfectly Dreadful Christmas, won the 2015 Holt Medallion.

Her education background includes a B.S. in Music Education and a B.A. in Vocal Performance from Judson College, an MMA in Opera Performance and Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, a DMA in Opera Performance and Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a year’s fellowship at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

Louisa’s advocacy for and allyship to members of the gay community is a direct result of her working and traveling with gay men and women in the world of opera. She saw firsthand the injustice and prejudice against a group of people whose goals and desires were no different from her own—to live, love, and pursue their life’s work as their true selves without having to deal with the prejudices and judgements of others. Her research into gay life during the Regency has proven to her those goals and desires are universal to all human beings no matter the era. More important, those goals are and were achievable then and now, and those stories deserve to be told and celebrated.

Her hobbies include collecting Regency research books, studying the history of Gothic romance, and playing doorman and maid to a herd of small, yappy dogs.