Born in Streatham, South London in September 1969,[1][2] Raven 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, though she subsequently had a four-year relationship with him.
[10] 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.
[13] In April 2013, it was announced that the feminist magazine Spare Rib would relaunch with Raven as the editor.
[18] In 2021, she published a memoir, Patient 1, 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.