Charlotte Raven

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Charlotte Raven (born 1969) is a British author and journalist. She studied English at the University of Manchester. As a Labour Club activist there in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was part of a successful campaign to oust then student union communications officer Derek Draper.[1] She was University of Manchester Students' Union Women's Officer in 1990-91 and presided over an election in which Liam Byrne MP failed to be elected as the Union's Welfare Officer. She later studied at the University of Sussex.

Raven was a contributor to the Modern Review, and the editor of the relaunched version in 1997. There she met Julie Burchill, with whom she had an affair in 1995: the two are pictured in the National Portrait Gallery. Her columns have appeared frequently in The Guardian and New Statesman.

In 2001 Raven was accused of regional 'racism' after launching an attack on Denise Fergus, the mother of child murder victim James Bulger, and the people of Liverpool in general, in a Guardian article on the James Bulger case.[2][3] The article generated a high level of complaints. In response, Guardian readers' editor Ian Mayes concluded that the article should not have been published.[4]

In April 2013, it was announced that the feminist magazine Spare Rib would relaunch with Raven as the editor.[5] It was subsequently announced that while a magazine and website were to be launched, it would now have a different name.[6]

Personal life[]

She and her partner the film maker Tom Sheahan have a daughter, Anna, born in 2004[7] and a son, John, who was born in 2009.[8]

In January 2010 she revealed that she had been diagnosed with Huntington's disease, an incurable hereditary disease, in January 2006 and had been contemplating suicide, an option she rejected after visiting a clinic in an area of Venezuela with a very high incidence of Huntington's Disease.[9] In 2019 she became patient 1 on the Roche Gen-Peak trial of a huntingtin protein-lowering drug tominersen.[10] In 2021 she published a book with her doctor Edward Wild on the experience of coming to terms with the diagnosis, the drug trial and the living with the illness as it affected her mind and body.[11]

References[]

  1. ^ Derek Draper, Charlotte Raven & Joanne Mallabar (1998-10-04). "How we met". The Independent. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  2. ^ Raven, Charlotte (2001-06-26). "Why the Bulger mourning marathon sickens me". The Guardian. London.
  3. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2010-03-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ "City limits". TheGuardian.com. 30 June 2001.
  5. ^ Ben Dowell (25 April 2013). "Spare Rib magazine to be relaunched by Charlotte Raven". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  6. ^ Charlotte Raven, "My 'wounding' battle with Spare Rib founders over feminism 2.0", The Telegraph, 24 June 2013.
  7. ^ Charlotte Raven (2006-07-15). "How my generation lost the plot". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  8. ^ "Living with Huntington's disease: 'For our family, the end of days is always close at hand'". the Guardian. 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2021-12-22.
  9. ^ Charlotte Raven (2010-01-16). "Charlotte Raven: Should I take my own life?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
  10. ^ Louise Carpenter (2021-10-30). "Charlotte Raven: Huntington's disease is 'a burden that is almost impossible to bear'". The Times. London. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  11. ^ "Charlotte Raven - Penguin Books".

External links[]


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