[citation needed] Her mother worked in Hut 6 in Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to break the Enigma code.
Between school and university Emerson was editorial assistant and writer on the magazine Books and Bookmen which she later went on to edit.
[citation needed] She worked on The Illustrated London News then became assistant editor of Plays and Players in 1976.
Next came Listeners in 1983, the bestsellers Fire Child (1987), Separation (titled Hush Little Baby in the US) 1992 and Heat set in Washington DC in 1998.
Her other non-fiction anthology titles include A Celebration of Babies (1986), The Kingfisher Nursery Treasury (1988), Since 2003 she has also worked as a travel writer for the Sunday Times[6] as well as contributing to other newspapers.