Janet Mary Wilson is Emerita Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology, University of Northampton[1] and editor of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing[2] and on the board of the Journal of New Zealand Literature.

[4] Wilson holds an MA in English from the Victoria University of Wellington, an MA in Medieval English from the University of Sydney and a DPhil from St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Wilson currently holds a Visiting Professorship at Birmingham City University, is an Academic Visitor at University of Auckland and a Visiting Research Fellow at Rothermere American Institute University of Oxford where she was previously a Senior Research Fellow and an Associate Research Fellow.

Wilson was a recipient of an Australian Commonwealth Fellowship at the University of Sydney (1972-1974) and a Violet Vaughan Morgan Studentship at St Catherine's College, Oxford (1980-1981).

Wilson was, until his death, married to the New Zealand writer and poet Kevin Ireland.