Emma Littlejohn was educated at Ascham School, Darling Point, Sydney. A journalist and broadcaster, she was concerned with women's rights, co-founding the League of Women Voters and, with Jessie Street (q.v.), the United Association of Women. Through her regular broadcasts on radio 2UE and 2UW she advocated for more female parliamentarians and for uniform divorce laws, ideas that she also put forward in her novel, Life and Lucille (1933). Littlejohn conducted regular overseas lecture tours and addressed the League of Nations in 1936. From 1937 to 1939 she was president of the Geneva-based Equal Rights International.
Albert Littlejohn, her husband, was brother of the writer Agnes Littlejohn (q.v.) and George, whose daughter Peggy Littlejohn (q.v.) wrote for children.