Dawn WATSON

Dawn Watson is a writer from Belfast. Her debut collection We Play Here is forthcoming with Granta Books in Spring 2023. Her poetry pamphlet The Stack of Owls is Getting Higher (2019) is published with The Emma Press. She is a currently a poetry PhD candidate at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University. Dawn is the recipient of an ACES award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and has appeared in literary journals including GrantaThe Manchester ReviewThe Moth, and The Stinging Fly.

Dawn graduated with a distinction in her Masters in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism from Queen’s University in autumn 2018. She previously graduated with a BA in English with Creative Writing in summer 2017, winning the Ruth West Poetry Scholarship Award, and the Dr Henry Hutchinson Stewart Literary Scholarship for academic achievement. She won the Dr George Alexander Baird Scholarship in 2016.

Dawn was a finalist in the 2020 Michael McLaverty Short Story Awards. She was selected as one of the 2018 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series poets, won the 2018 Doolin Writers’ Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the Mairtín Crawford Award in 2018 and the Dermot Healy Poetry Award in 2017. Dawn was awarded second place in the Funeral Services NI National Poetry Competition in 2016.

Dawn has taught undergraduate Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queen’s University since 2018. She is a former national tabloid sub editor of 15 years and lives in Belfast.


Photo (c) - dawnwatsonwriter.com

  • Ville de Bruxelles
  • Romanian Cultural Institute in Brussels
  • LUCA School of Arts
  • Instituto Cervantes Brussels
  • Vlaams-Nederlands Huis deBuren
  • Czech Centre Brussels
  • Permanent Representation of Lithuania to the EU
  • Swedish Institute
  • Greenlandic Writers Association
  • Polish Institute - Cultural Service of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Brussels
  • Danish Cultural Institute
  • Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union
  • Etxepare Euskal Institutua
  • Hungarian Cultural Institute Brussels
  • Permanent Representation of the Republic of Estonia to the European Union
  • Spain Arts and Culture - Cultural and Scientific Service of the Embassy of Spain in Belgium
  • Ambassade du Luxembourg à Bruxelles
  • Embassy of Sweden
  • Embassy of Ireland
  • Embassy of the Republic of Estonia in Belgium
  • Embassy of the Republic of Latvia to the Kingdom of Belgium
  • Greenland Representation to the European Union
  • It Skriuwersboun
  • Mission of the Faroes to the EU
  • Istituto Italiano di Cultura
  • MuntPunt
  • LOFT 58
  • Permanent Representation of the Republic of Slovenia to the European Union
  • Commission européenne
  • Lithuanian Culture Institute
  • Embassy of Andorra
  • Orfeu - Livraria Portuguesa
  • Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity
  • Leeuwarden Europan Capital of Culture 2018
  • Camões Instituto de Cooperação e Língua Portugal
  • Yunus Emre Institute
  • Scottish Government EU Office
  • Austrian Cultural Forum