Stephanie Cross has ghostwritten two Sunday Times top 10 bestselling memoirs: The Living Years by Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford (2014), and The Girl on the Dancing Horse by Charlotte Dujardin (2018). The Girl on the Dancing Horse was shortlisted for the Telegraph Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year 2019.
Stephanie was born in Norfolk and studied at the University of Cambridge, where she received a BA in English and M.Phil in English Studies. In 2006 she was recognised by the Arts Council, East ‘Escalator’ programme as one of the ten best prose writers working in the Eastern region.
Stephanie is an experienced editor, mentor and teacher, working with both The Literacy Consultancy and the schools’ literary charity First Story. In 2021 she was named as a Rathbones Folio Prize Mentor – the Rathbones Folio Mentorships provide a year’s worth of professional mentoring for young writers who are graduates of the First Story scheme.
Stephanie lives in London where, since 2021, she has been working as a literary scout. She also regularly reviews fiction for the Daily Mail and is an events producer for 5×15.
'As a mentor, Stephanie brought an extraordinary blend of insight, expertise, and empathy to our work together. Her feedback on my manuscript was profound, rich, and multi-layered, from the meta to the granular. She helped me rethink the book's structure and the centrality of characters and guided me through ways to elevate the impact and emotional resonance of my writing. 'Stephanie has an incredible gift for mentorship. She was consistently attentive and genuinely curious about my ideas, offering a very safe, non-judgmental space where I could explore, stretch, and refine my work. Her style balanced thoughtful encouragement with clear, constructive development feedback. As a result, the manuscript is immeasurably stronger. She helped me bring a new level of coherence to the book and have the courage to kill some darlings! Her support didn’t just help me improve the manuscript; it elevated my writing skills. 'I’m deeply grateful for Stephanie's support and wholeheartedly recommend her to any writer seeking a trusted guide and highly skilled writing mentor.' – Neil Jacobs
'Stephanie, a successful writer, is also an excellent editor, and a pleasure to work with. Supportive and encouraging, she gets to the heart of your story, the overall structure and the detail, and makes insightful comments that improve the book. I would wholeheartedly recommend her to both new writers and established writers who would like a final edit before sending their work off to their agent or publisher.' – Richard Hines, author of No Way But Gentlenesse
'I chose Stephanie as an additional reader when I thought my novel, Absent Year, was finished. She read, checked and commented on the manuscript with pertinent and constructive criticism, which helped me restructure and rebuild my confidence and get the book in shape for publication. Without her help, it might still be languishing in a drawer. She made the significant recommendation that the title should change to reflect the sometimes upbeat nature of the main character and Absent Year was re-named Girl in the Mirror, and is now published as historical fiction.' – Jools Abrams-Humphries, author of Girl in the Mirror
'I approached Stephanie at a critical time, when I needed help to move forward my book-length manuscript — my first work of narrative non-fiction, long in the making. Her response, delivered on schedule, surpassed in its depth of understanding all of my expectations. It was constructive criticism at its best, enabling me to make some very beneficial changes; best of all her insights allowed me to reshape and revise the manuscript with the goal of creating a whole greater than the sum of its parts. In other words to transform a manuscript into what I hope will be a book. I can also add that, from the outset, I found Stephanie very approachable, friendly and helpful to work with.' – Robin Dance
'Everything I now know about memoir writing, Stephanie has taught me in a very supportive way. She consistently reads my chapters and offers sound advice on style and content when she feels I am ready to receive it. I am so grateful for her help.' –Margaret Murphy
