Jean Watkins is a retired teacher originally from West Yorkshire. She qualified at Roehampton; later gained the Diploma of the Dyslexia Institute and taught students with specific learning difficulties. Jean is married with two adult children and two grandchildren. She has lived near Reading for many years and in 2001 gained a BA in English at Reading University. She regularly attends poetry workshops and reads in open mic’ sessions at Reading Poets’ Café.
 
Jean’s poems have been published in Mslexia, The Sunday Telegraph, Magma, South, Acumen, ARTEMISpoetry and many anthologies. She was short listed for the Poetry Business Competition in 2008/9. Her first collection, Scrimshaw, was published in 2013 and her second, Precarious Lives, in 2018, both by Two Rivers Press.