Joan Smith

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Joan Smith bigraphy, stories - British writer

Joan Smith : biography

27 August 1953 –

Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953) is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN.

Life and work

The daughter of a park superintendent, Smith was educated at a state school before reading Latin at the University of Reading in the early 1970s.http://irisonline.org.uk/index.php/interviews/interview-archive/29-civitas-smith-iris-meets-joan-smith After a spell as a journalist in local radio in Manchester, she joined the staff of the Sunday Times in 1979 and stayed at the newspaper until 1984, although Smith still contributes book reviews to the publication. She has had a regular column in the The Guardian’s Weekend supplement, also freelancing for the newspaper and has contributed to The Independent, the Independent on Sunday, and the New Statesman.

In her non-fiction Smith displays a commitment to atheism, feminism and republicanism; she has travelled extensively and this is reflected in her articles. Smith has taken a strong anti-Iraq war stance. She is scornful of popular culture and once gave away her television set to her ex-husband, although she acquired a new set almost a decade later.

Outside the UK, Smith is probably best known for the Loretta Lawson series of crime novels. What Will Survive (2007) is a novel set in Lebanon in 1997 concerning a journalist’s investigation into the death of a model and anti-landmine campaigner.

In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN,Joan Smith Independent on Sunday, 11 April 2004 but refused the award.Joan Smith , Independent on Sunday, 24 June 2007 She is a supporter of the political organisation, Republic and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.

Smith was married to journalist Francis Wheen between 1985 and 1993. She had a relationship with Denis MacShane, a British Labour Party politician at the time. On 25 May 2009, during the expenses scandal of 2009 Smith wrote an article for The Guardian titled "I am sick of my country and this hysteria over MPs" objecting to the furore over MPs’ expenses which she cited as an example of bullying in public life, stating that her (then) partner was an (unnamed) MP. The couple subsequently split up in 2010 after seven years together; MacShane has subsequently faced a Metropolitan Police investigation into his expenses, and was forced to resign his seat.

On 15 September 2010, Smith, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to the UK.

She is a keen supporter of Classics in state schools, describing the 1997-2010 Labour government’s failure to act on the matter as "hardly their finest hour"http://irisonline.org.uk/index.php/interviews/interview-archive/29-civitas-smith-iris-meets-joan-smith and is a patron of The Iris Project.

In November 2011 she gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press and media standards following the telephone hacking practised by the News of the World. She testified that she considered celebrities thought they could control press content if they put themselves into the public domain when, in reality the opposite was more likely. She repeated a claim that she has persistently adhered to in her writings that the press is misogynistic.