JENSGOTTAPEN
Jennifer Watts is a writer living in New Zealand. She is a former journalist who has travelled and lived in several countries. She has freelanced for several newspapers and literary publications.
She is a two-time Chicken Soup For The Soul author. She has a serious podcast/binge-watch habit and loves getting lost in a good book or movie. Jennifer is a mother to two, wife to one and friend to anyone who buys her coffee.
No Talent, No Problem. Just Say Yes by Jennifer Watts, published by Stuff, July 2023
"It's 1989, I'm 18 years old, and Miami wine coolers have replaced all blood in my body. It's under these conditions that I decide to wow my coworkers with a karaoke rendition of Delta Dawn at the annual staff party."
MY SECRET STASH: I lay bare to you my one bad habit.The pastel hues. The soft close of a water tight lid. Sexy edges and perfect form. A snug fit and the gushing “wow” when visitors see her.
A NZ Herald story by Jennifer Watts
Tupperware: Mourning the loss of the best ‘multi-level marketing’ scheme that New Zealand ever got addicted to.
IT'S HAPPENING: How a family dealt with a much-loved member's dementia diagnosis.
A Sunday Star Times essay by Jennifer Watts
"Sometimes kindness is in what we don't say if we don't have to.
I'm learning that boundaries aren't cruel, especially when they're necessary."
THE OTHER SIDE OF EXHALE
An Essay: featured in Issue 42 of The Blue Nib and NZ Herald
I never trusted heaven, until I had a dream about being there.
In my work as a hospice volunteer I’d sat by the bedside of people dying, part of a ministry of presence for those in their last few hours of life. READ MORE
OUT NOW: The Magic Of Dogs. 101 stories about our floofy friends! Support local: order your copy at your local bookstore, or order online.
A Chicken Soup For The Soul book featuring THE HONEY TRAP, by Jennifer Watts.
"When my mother died, I felt nothing. She was just 62. A short life, lived hard, cancer taking her well before old age did. I worried I was heartless."
A story featured in the The Forgiveness Fix, a book from Chicken Soup For The Soul, available at all good book stores.
NZ Herald
Here I stand, Mother of the Bride.
The hat I’ll wear is because someone said “no hats” and while middle age has caught up with me, a smidgen of rebellious teen remains.
The sensible shoes are insurance against the champagne and the midi length dress is a nod to age, thanks wrinkly knees.
NZ Herald
Remember thigh gap, the social media-fuelled craze a few years back when women starved themselves and then, with careful angles, photographed a supposedly sexy gap between their legs?
Well, I found man gap. It’s thriving in Kinloch, a small holiday town on Lake Taupo’s northern-most bay.
Adelaide Advertiser
My dear Adelaide, the affair is over.
I came, stayed, played just shy of 3 months. You had me in your grasp at day two and I loved you every day after. But if we’re really going to talk love, I need to know why you’re only ever the bridesmaid and never the bride.
The Orlando Sentinel
America, I got you quite wrong.
I’ve had a lifetime being force fed a culture by the entertainment industry, and I thought I knew you.
Then I landed here as a temporary resident. Big, boisterous America has a stage presence that’s both a gift and curse.
Basil was all ginger fluff and cuteness when he arrived at our house in a cardboard box on the back seat of my car. I’d picked him up from a young family, who were coy but firm about finding him a new home.
Words like “babies”, “allergies” and “busy” were thrown about and I naively caught them as intended, a family with little kids who could no longer cope with the demands of a pet.
My 13-year-old headed off to her first day of high school the other week and there wasn’t a tear to be found in the house.
For sale: Ball dress, sky-blue taffeta with a puffy skirt and pretty bow. Cost a fortune, worn once, going cheap.
Forget the Love Generation. Forget the X, Y and I Generation. My tweenagers belong to the Spoilt Generation.
It's just stuff. And I’ve collected a lot of it in the 8 years of being back in home town Napier, New Zealand. It’s a tad perplexing because I’m not a hoarder. But wait one closet-filled moment — is that what all hoarders say? Read more
While a madman with a gun opened fire inside the Pulse Nightclub in downtown Orlando I was tucked up in bed enjoying the bliss of air conditioning and sweet dreams, 25 minutes up the road.
A love-thy-stranger epidemic has reached our shores and it’s killing me with its kindness. I’m slowly being poisoned by terms of endearment thrown out randomly and carelessly by sales assistants everywhere. Read more
