Joanne Watkinson is a forty-six-year-old writer from Yorkshire. She started writing when she was a teenager, and continued to do so through to adulthood, although it took nearly two decades before she allowed anyone to read anything she'd written. In the early nineties Joanne studied Performing Arts in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire gaining a BA Hons, and went on to study for a PGCE in Drama and English at Bretton Hall college. In 1996 she took up a Drama and English teaching post at a school in South Yorkshire where she stayed for nineteen years heading up a successful performing arts department. Alongside her teaching commitments she examined for GCSE and A-Level practical exams travelling around the country. But after a devastating set back due to a serious illness, made the difficult decision to leave her teaching career to fulfil a dream of opening her own theatre school and becoming a writer.

Elite Theatre Arts opened in Doncaster nearly five years ago and continues to go from strength to strength. Last year Joanne set herself a new challenge and started up ETA Management, a casting agency for children and young adults, she continued writing along side setting up the businesses and after several successful years of self publishing her monologues were picked up by LAMDA for their recent Anthology. Working with children has always been an important part of Joanne's career and to date she has directed over fifty plays and shows across Yorkshire including some of her own material, which she continues to enjoy writing. Joanne is so pleased to have joined forces with Salamander Street, and is looking forward to new goals and opportunities.