Emily Walker was born in Bowraville in 1937. Granny Florence Ballangarry was the midwife and delivered many babies from around that time. Walker's mother was a Dangatti woman and her father was a Biripi man.

At forty-nine years of age, Emily Walker enrolled to do an Aboriginal Education Certificate Course and later she learnt the Gumbayngirr language. Walker has put her stories on canvases and taken them to the schools she has visited. She has also written poetry and taught others how to write it.