Joan Faulkner-Blake
Joan Faulkner-Blake was a professional New Zealand broadcaster in the mid to late twentieth century.Life and career
Faulkner was born Joan Isabel Faulkner to Edward Ernest Faulkner and Rhoda Vera Faulkner in Cambridge, Waikato. After training as a journalist on the Dominion newspaper in Wellington, and marrying Norman Blake at Napier in 1941, Faulkner spent much of World War II working for the Hawera Star in Taranaki. From 1944–1948 she and her husband leased the Dawson Falls Lodge, Egmont National Park, and there she gained an appreciation for the flora and fauna and traditional lore of the region’s National Parks.
After gaining overseas experience as a journalist, Faulkner returned to write syndicated columns in four main-centre newspapers for ten years in the 1950s. Her "New Zealand Newsletters" found audiences in Britain, Canada and South Africa from 1961 to 1985. She ran a "Behind the Headlines" commentary on current affairs on NZBC commercial network for 14 years, gave regular book reviews on the YA stations, and for 11 years was a regular panellist on Sunday Supplement.
She edited education programmes on the National parks of New Zealand, and the legends of Lake Taupo and Mount Taranaki/Egmont, which are still available today, and in the 1970s produced a documentary series for Radio New Zealand that looked at the legend of the mountains and traditions surrounding them. She gave many workshops and courses on writing and journalism, and inspired the creation of writers' groups at Stratford and New Plymouth. In 1971 she was named "New Zealand Woman of the Year".
