[1] Jan Owen was born Janette Muriel Sincock in Adelaide, South Australia, attending school there and in Melbourne, leaving early to work as a laboratory assistant.
[2] During the 60s she studied arts part-time at the University of Adelaide, then librarianship, and later travelled extensively in Europe and Asia.
[3] In July 2016 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal at the Mildura Writers' Festival.
Owen began writing poetry in her thirties, and her first collection, Boy with Telescope (1986), won the Anne Elder Award.
[4] The judges wrote: "a well crafted poem full of intriguing resonances on the theme of memory and association.