Born in Dannevirke, Hawke's Bay, Edmond survived the 1931 Napier earthquake as a child. Trained as a teacher, she raised a family before publishing the poetry she had privately written throughout her life. Following her first book, "In Middle Air", written in 1975, she published many volumes of poetry, a novel, an autobiography ("Hot October", 1989) and several plays. Her "Selected Poems" (1984) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.