Joanna El Mir has an MA in Art Direction from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and most recently completed an MA in Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
She started working in publishing in 2001 as Art Director at Samir Éditeur, a Beirut-based textbook and children's book publisher. In 2006 she won the Young Publishing Entrepreneur award with the British Council. She became the editorial director for the children's book list at Samir Éditeur, building a catalogue in two languages, Arabic and French. Samir Éditeurpublishes picture books, first readers, middle grade and teenagefiction, working with established and debuting talents across different cultural backgrounds and illustration styles. In 2022 Samir Éditeur won the BOP award for Asia (Best Publisher of the Year) at Bologna Children's Book Fair.