Kira Cochrane is a British journalist. She was born and raised in Essex. Her elder brother was killed aged 8 in a traffic accident in 1983, and Cochrane's father had died of a heart attack with the result that Cochrane and her younger brother were brought up by their mother as a single parent. She read American Literature at Sussex and University of California, Davis. Formerly a journalist on The Sunday Times, she is a feature writer on The Guardian and was the newspaper's women's editor from 2006 to November 2010, when she was succeeded by Jane Martinson. Cochrane is now a features writer on the newspaper. Cochrane wrote a column for the New Statesman magazine from around 2006 to July 2008. Kira Cochrane has published two novels, The Naked Season and Escape Routes for Beginners, which appeared on the long list for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005. In 2009, Cochrane was herself on the judging panel for that year's Orange Prize for Fiction. She co-edited Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists and has edited an anthology of women's writing which has appeared in The Guardian, Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism.