June 2013 – Page 2 – Yvonne Watterson Writing

More about Yvonne

Yvonne Watterson is a Northern Irish-born writer and educator, now based near Guadalajara, Mexico. Her career in public education spans 30 years, during which she led school reform initiatives featured in national outlets including The New York Times and Education Week. Her work as a high school principal in Arizona focused on equity, inclusion, and student advocacy, earning both local and national attention. Yvonne's writing life began in November 2011, after an invasive breast cancer diagnosis sent her searching for answers online. What began as survival grew into a practice of storytelling, with her work appearing beyond this blog in The Irish Times, Irish Central, Reading Ireland, and other outlets. Yvonne's essays and reflections explore themes ranging from The Troubles in Northern Ireland and the poetry of Seamus Heaney to personal experiences of illness, loss, and resilience after being widowed in 2013. She compiled and edited Documented Dreams, a bilingual collection of letters documenting her advocacy with young immigrant students, and she contributed to Bravados: An Anthology, featuring 21 personal narratives by expats living in the Lake Chapala region. Most recently, she collaborated with Stephen Travers on The Bass Player – Surviving the Miami Showband Massacre. Yvonne’s social justice advocacy has earned her numerous honors, including the City of Phoenix Martin Luther King “Living the Dream” Award and the YWCA Tribute to Women Social Justice Leader Award. She is also a musician, performing with her partner, Scott Henrich, in The Old Souls Band, a six-piece Americana ensemble based in Ajijic, Mexico and she plays violin in the Lake Chapala Community Orchestra. Her daughter, Sophie, also a writer, lives in Arizona. “If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.” ― Seamus Heaney

About Yvonne

From there to here . . . Yvonne Watterson is a Northern Irish-born writer and educator, now based near Guadalajara, Mexico. Her career in public education spans nearly 30 years, during which she led school reform initiatives featured in national outlets including The New York Times and Education Week. Her work as a high school principal in Arizona focused on equity, inclusion, and student advocacy, earning both local and national attention. Her writing life began in 2011, after an invasive breast cancer diagnosis sent her searching for answers online. What began as survival grew into a practice of storytelling, with her work appearing in The Irish Times, Irish Central, Reading Ireland, and other outlets. Her essays and reflections explore themes ranging from The Troubles in Northern Ireland and the poetry of Seamus Heaney to personal experiences of illness, loss, and resilience after being widowed in 2013. She compiled and edited Documented Dreams, a bilingual collection of letters documenting her advocacy with young immigrant students, and she contributed to Bravados: An Anthology, featuring 21 personal narratives by expats living in the Lake Chapala region. Most recently, she collaborated with Stephen Travers on The Bass Player – Surviving the Miami Showband Massacre. Yvonne’s social justice advocacy has earned her numerous honors, including the City of Phoenix Martin Luther King “Living the Dream” Award and the YWCA Tribute to Women Social Justice Leader Award. She is also a musician, performing with her partner, Scott Henrich, in The Old Souls Band, an Americana ensemble based in Ajijic, Mexico and she plays violin in the Lake Chapala Community Orchestra. Her daughter, Sophie, is also a writer, living in Arizona.

Memoir

inarticulate speech of the heart – happy father’s day

June 16, 2013 / No Comments

A favorite poem for Father’s Day … Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the…

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Art, Awesome Women, Blogging, Breast Cancer Treatment, Chemotherapy, Family, Fathers and sons, Friendships, Happy Father's Day, Loss, Love, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Writing

a promise kept for father’s day

June 15, 2013 / 30 Comments

I never met Hugh James Sutherland who died on Sunday, May 5, 2013, but I know he loved the New York Times crossword puzzle, Scrabble, Starbucks, and walking at dusk with his wife. Nor have I met his wife, Karen, but she is my friend. We first bumped into each other on the blogosphere, via a comment she left on my New…

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American Dream, Belfast, Friendships, Memoir, Music, Northern Ireland, Soundtracks of our Lives, summer camp, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Writing

coming to america … the reprise

June 11, 2013 / 23 Comments

I arrived in America in the summer of 1984, before my final year at Stranmillis College in Belfast. The first words spoken to me in America, “Keep on rollin’, lady,” fell impatiently from the lips of an unwelcoming security guard as I collected my rucksack and proceeded through Customs and Immigration at John F. Kennedy international airport, confirming for me…

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and What I Wore, Art, Awesome Women, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Culture of breast cancer, Facebook, Memoir, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Nora Ephron, Soundtracks of our Lives, Theater, Writers

what I wore, a mountain of life & missing Nora Ephron . . .

June 5, 2013 / 18 Comments

Last night, my best friend and I went to see the enchanting and poignant Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Nora and Delia Ephron‘s stage-adaptation of Ilene Beckerman’s book by the same name. Like each of the five women on stage, I can peer into my wardrobe and hang on the clothes and shoes and handbags bulging from it, some…

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