Janean L. Watkins
Communications / Technology Manager
…a multidisciplinary storyteller, content creator, and creative professional with over two decades of experience spanning publishing, digital media, and social justice advocacy. She is the founder of the award-winning .:SEEDS:. Literary Arts Journal and the first Black Editor-in-Chief of Northeastern Illinois University’s student newspaper. Janean is also the founder of Urban Matrix Creative Solutions LLC, and currently serves as Communications and Technology Manager for Chicago Volunteer Doulas, where she leads digital strategy, communications, and technology initiatives.
About Janean
Janean L. Watkins has built a career at the intersection of creativity, technology, and social justice. In 2016, she launched Urban Matrix Creative Solutions LLC, a boutique firm specializing in web design, content strategy, and web-based storytelling for artists, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Through Urban Matrix, she co-produced Musicon3—a YouTube artist series in partnership with Roc Star Studios—developed Boss Chronicles, a web series spotlighting Chicago’s entrepreneurial scene, and published a four-issue print run of Urban Matrix Magazine, featuring Chicago-based brands and voices.
​
Her collaborations include work with Soul Survivors of Chicago, Women With A Vision, Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, LIFT Louisiana, Austin Community Family Center, and the National Council of African Women. In 2023, she joined Chicago Volunteer Doulas as Communications and Technology Manager, supporting birth and reproductive justice through strategic communications, digital engagement, and technology management.
​
Beyond her professional work, Janean is deeply invested in storytelling as a tool for cultural preservation and liberation. She is currently writing Awaken the Anomalies, a speculative fiction trilogy exploring survival, memory, and resistance through the intersecting lives of extraordinary people of color navigating a fractured world. Alongside the trilogy, she publishes personal essays and creative reflections on Patreon and curates in-progress work through links available on her LinkTree.
​
At the heart of Janean’s work is a commitment to truth-telling, cultural legacy, and radical imagination—bridging her professional expertise with her creative practice to uplift communities and expand collective possibilities.