Townshend has written for most of the broadsheet newspapers and has been a guest on radio and TV including the BBC World Service, Woman's Hour, and Newsnight.
She continues to have links with the Royal Botanic Gardens: in December 2013 a tour of Kew plus afternoon tea with Townshend was auctioned for charity, by her employers the Independent on Sunday newspaper, selling eventually for £720.
[17][better source needed] In 1982 Townshend and her sister Minta made their professional music debut singing back-up on A Bao A Qu, a four-track EP by their aunt, singer-songwriter Virginia Astley, named after a Jorge Luis Borges story.
[18] Emma sang back-up on Pete Townshend's White City: A Novel album released in 1985, and appeared in the film of the same title, named after an area of West London.
[21][citation needed] She provided vocals for "We Can Fly Away", written by Sandy McLelland and Paul Lowin, which was the theme song in the 1999 made-for-TV movie The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns.