Staunton was born in
Southern Rhodesia, which later became Zimbabwe, and studied English literature in the UK. She began her career in publishing in London, where she was employed by
John Calder. Following the 1980 Independence of Zimbabwe, she returned there and worked as an editor first for the Department of Culture in the Ministry of Education and Culture, and then on the Curriculum Development Unit in the same Ministry.
Baobab Books In 1987, Staunton and
Hugh Lewin co-founded Baobab Press, "which rapidly acquired a reputation as an exciting literary publisher", and during her 11 years there the company published a range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's books, art books and textbooks. While at Baobab Books, Staunton compiled the first Zimbabwean oral history with narratives of women in the liberation struggle,
Mothers of the Revolution. Weaver Press now counts among its successful authors
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
NoViolet Bulawayo,
Brian Chikwava,
Shimmer Chinodya,
Petina Gappah,
Tendai Huchu,
Sarah Ladipo Manyika,
Sekai Nzenza,
Valerie Tagwira, Yvonne Vera, among others. Tinashe Mushkavanhu has written of Staunton: "It was the work of writers she published that always occupied center stage, winning international accolades, or getting translated. ...Weaver Press has been the most active publishing concern in Zimbabwe in a struggling economy". The company's fiction programme has been developed with support from Dutch NGO
Hivos.
Related literary activities Staunton has for many years concerned herself with research through oral histories, sometimes in projects with other organizations, focusing on otherwise unheard African voices, particularly of Zimbabwean women and children. She has worked with
Save the Children Zimbabwe on various publications, including ''Children in Our Midst: Voices of Farmworkers' Children
(2000), based on interviews with (and including drawings by) hundreds of children moving from farm school to farm school in rural Zimbabwe, who speak on the range of issues that affect them. The reviewer for the journal Children, Youth and Environments'' wrote: "The chapters, composed entirely of the children's written or recorded statements, cover many aspects of the children’s lives, including their sense of self ('I am a child'), families, homes, work experience, school, customs and play ('Sometimes we have fun'). ...This is not simply a book that publishes the opinions of working children. It is a book that challenges our Western assumptions about healthy childhood. It paints vivid pictures of what it is like to grow up on commercial farms in Zimbabwe, with work responsibilities from a very young age integrated into education and upbringing, as a legitimate aspect of the local traditions." In collaboration with Chiedza Musengezi of
Zimbabwe Women Writers, Staunton compiled
A Tragedy of Lives: Women in Prison in Zimbabwe, based on interviews with former female prisoners, and
Women of Resilience: The Voices of Women Ex-combatants (2000). Staunton's own short story "Pauline's Ghost" was shortlisted for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award, judged by
J. M. Coetzee. Well respected as an editor and publisher whose authors regularly win prizes — Stanley Gazemba in his recent article "African Publishing Minefields and the Woes of the African Writer" commends the attention paid by Staunton "to the editing process and the design and quality of her books" — she has been an invited participant in local and international literary events. She has edited a number of well received collections of Zimbabwean writing, and has also written articles on publishing in Zimbabwe. For 12 years from 2003 she worked closely with
Poetry International as their Zimbabwe editor, handing over the role in 2015 to
Togara Muzanenhamo. Speaking in a 2011 interview Staunton said: "Editors are a bit like stage-hands: the play can't go on without them, and yet their role is necessarily in the shadows. It is, however, interesting to see how many writers acknowledge their editors – the third eye is of value." ==Personal life==