In 2003 she served as a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK's largest annual literary award. She has also been on the panel for the South Bank Show arts awards, the Ben Pimlott Prize for political writing (2005), the Guardian/Penguin photography competition for cover art (2006), the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, and other awards. Literary festivals where she has spoken include Prague (2003) and Hay-on-Wye (2005). In 2008 she served as a judge for the Orwell Prize (for political writing).
Before moving to the Guardian she was literary journalist at the Financial Times and theatre critic on the Evening Standard. She married the British novelist Ian McEwan in 1997.