which she tugs at God’s sleeve, ruminates on clowns, shoplifts used books, dabbles in Greek and palavers with the dead, is a stunner." On 14 May 2013, Smith gave the National Centre for Writing's inaugural Harriet Martineau lecture, in celebration of Norwich, UNESCO's 2012 City of Literature. Smith is also a patron of the Visual Verse online anthology and her piece "Untitled", written in response to an image by artist Rupert Jessop, appears in the November 2014 edition. On 10 September 2015, Smith was nominated Honorary Fellow by Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2011, she contributed the short story "Scots Pine (A Valediction Forbidding Mourning)" to Why Willows Weep, an anthology supporting The Woodland Trust. The paperback edition was released in 2016. In July 2016, Smith was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia. Smith is a patron of Refugee Tales. In 2016, Smith's story "The Detainee's Tale" was published by Comma Press in Refugee Tales Volume 1. In May 2021, Smith contributed a short story entitled "The final frontier" to a newborn magazine, The European Review of Books. Personal life Smith lives in Cambridge with her partner, filmmaker Sarah Wood. Awards and honours In 2007, Smith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to literature. An honorary doctorate (D.Litt) was awarded to her by Newcastle University in 2019. Literary awards References 1962 births Living people 20th-century British journalists 20th-century British short story writers 20th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Scottish novelists 20th-century Scottish women writers 21st-century British journalists 21st-century British short story writers 21st-century LGBT people 21st-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Scottish women writers 21st-century Scottish writers Academics of the University of Strathclyde Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Aberdeen British bisexual writers British women journalists British women short story writers Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Goldsmiths Prize winners People educated at Inverness High School People from Cambridge People from Inverness People with chronic fatigue syndrome Scottish journalists Scottish LGBT novelists Scottish scholars and academics Scottish short story writers Scottish women academics Scottish women dramatists and playwrights Scottish women novelists Scottish academics of English literature