Johanna Emeney

Johanna Emeney has a background in teaching and writing poetry. She lives in Coatesville with her husband, David, and their cats, goats, sheep and ponies. In 2022, she and Sarah Laing created the book Sylvia and the Birds, about Sylvia Durrant, the Bird Lady of Rothesay Bay, which combines comics, photographs and text to tell Sylvia’s life story and teach young people about ways in which they can protect our taonga birds. It was shortlisted for the 2023 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults