Norma Watkins

Author | Teacher | Activist

Norma Watkins grew up in Mississippi and studied writing with Eudora Welty. Her memoirs, The Last Resort: Taking the Mississippi Cure and That Woman From Mississippi explore coming of age in the Magnolia state during the civil rights struggles and the exile that followed. Watkins has a Ph.D. in English from Union Graduate School and an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. She is Professor Emerita at Miami Dade College where she held an endowed chair. She teaches Creative Writing for Mendocino College on the northern California coast where she lives with her woodworker husband Les and one cat (when she’s not on the other coast in Miami with husband and cat).