She lives in Millers Flat, Central Otago, writes picture books and junior fiction and is a popular and well-known speaker at schools and literary festivals.

[1] She completed a Bachelor of Business Degree at the Queensland Institute of Technology, then travelled across Europe and the Middle East and settled in New Zealand in 1990.

After working at a variety of jobs including journalist, EFL teacher, Environment Centre manager, dishwasher, interviewer, traffic surveyor, apple-picker, machine operator and Kibbutznik, Mewburn became a full-time writer in 1997.

[2] Her favourite book as a child was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, which she loved for its word games and puns,[3] qualities which also appear in her own work.

[9] Mewburn lives with her wife, Marion (a well-known potter), two cats and 24 chickens, in a self-built house with a grass roof[17] in Millers Flat, Central Otago.