JACKSON was born in Cumbria, England, and currently lives in Australia and New Zealand. She has written poetry since childhood and has published four books, a chapbook, seven zines and a CD. She won the 2019 Ros Spencer Poetry Prize and the 2014 Ethel Webb Bundell Poetry Prize. Her poems have also won a number of second prizes and commendations. Her hundreds of public appearances include guest performances at the Queensland and Tasmanian Poetry Festivals. In 2018 she completed her PhD in Writing at Edith Cowan University, winning the University Research Medal, the Arts and Humanities Research Medal and the Magdalena Prize for Feminist Research.
Since 1991 her work has been published in Australian, American, English and Canadian journals and anthologies, including the Australian Poetry Journal, The High Window, Ink Sweat & Tears, London Grip, Cordite, and the Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry. She was the featured essayist in The High Window issue 7.
In 2009 Jackson instigated Perth Poetry Club, a highly successful weekly reading and community group, which is now well-known across the poetry world and has launched many poets’ public careers. She coordinated it until 2012. In 2013 she founded the online poetry journal Uneven Floor, editing it until 2018.
Jackson has two adult children and has worked as a computer programmer, a charity telemarketer, a voluntary breastfeeding counsellor, and an English-language teacher. During 2018 and 2019 she taught English in China. She now works as an editor and casual academic.
6 December 2021