Dawn Watson is the author of We Play Here (Granta Poetry, 2023) – a Guardian Poetry Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize 2024 and the John Pollard International Poetry Prize for outstanding debut. The book was described as an "extraordinary, game-changing narrative long poem" by Luke Kennard. Dawn's pamphlet The Stack of Owls is Getting Higher is published by The Emma Press. She won the Ruth West Poetry Scholarship Award at Queen's University in 2017 and completed a PhD in poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre in 2022. Her thesis is titled Strangey Alive: Elizabeth Bishop's Poetic Prose and the 'Art of Story Writing'. Dawn writes essays and short stories for BBC Radio 4, and her poetry and prose appear in leading journals such as Granta and The Poetry Review. She is the recipient of an ACES award and a General Arts Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Dawn is a former journalist and is currently a lecturer in poetry and prose at Queen's University, Belfast.