Joy Cowley has been writing for nearly fifty years. Her first published works were short stories and novels for adults.

Joy's chosen career would have been in art or journalism, but her parents apprenticed her to the local pharmacist when she left school. At the age of 20 she married farmer Ted Cowley, lived on a dairy farm and had four children in almost as many years. During these years she wrote short stories in the evenings. One of these stories, reprinted in "Short Story International" was read in New York by Doubleday editor Anne Hutchens who wrote to ask if she had a novel. That query led to five novels published by Doubleday, between 1967 and 1978.

In 1978 Joy decided to take five years leave from adult novels, to write a children's reading programme with teacher/ editor June Melser. This resulted in the Story Box Reading Programme which was published by Shortland Publications, Auckland, and then by The Wright Group, USA. Joy became deeply involved in early reading and the five years of commitment became twenty years. Since Story Box, Joy has written more than 600 early reading titles. In 1999 her 6th adult novel was published.

Joy has received many awards including an OBE in 1992 for services to children's literature, an Hon. D.Litt from Massey University, the Roberta Long medal for multicultural writing (USA) in 2002, the A.W. Reed Award for Contribution to New Zealand Literature (2004), and a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCMNZ) in 2005.