Joan Smith is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist born in 1953. Smith was educated at a state school before reading Latin at the University of Reading in the early 1970s. 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. Smith is probably best known for the Loretta Lawson series of crime novels which were published between 1987 and 1995, however, she also writes non-fiction as is a keen political activist, scornful of popular culture and displaying a commitment to atheism and feminism. Smith was appointed the Executive Director of Hacked Off in late May 2014, but stood down in 2015 to resume her writing career full-time
