October 2014 – 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.

BC Action, Breast Cancer Advocacy, Breast Cancer Awareness, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Breast cancer walks, Carcinogens, Culture of breast cancer, Early Detection, Environmental Issues, Fracking, Mammograms, Pink Ribbons, Pinkwashing, Profiting from breast cancer, Susan G Komen Foundation

What – no cure? Maybe next October.

October 31, 2014 / 14 Comments

Time to remove the pink ribbons from our lapels and gorge ourselves with Halloween candy. As November comes around, our grocery store shelves will turn from pink to the amber hues of Thanksgiving, and before we know it, we’ll be decorating Christmas trees and drinking egg-nog. After an interminable month of pink ribbons and races, I will still have breast cancer. I haven’t…

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Memoir

van morrison & ghosts of a Hallowe’en past

October 31, 2014 / No Comments

Sharing a Hallowe’en story that haunts me still . . .

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Lou Reed, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Music, The Velvet Underground

hand ballet: magic & loss & lou reed remembered

October 29, 2014 / 18 Comments

Graceful and elegant, my daughter’s fingers catch the sun spilling through the window. For a minute, everything stops. My little girl’s hands are those of a young woman. Strong and steady. Earnest. She is the real warrior in our house. Just a twinkling ago, she first discovered her beautiful hands. For me, her besotted mother, it was a magical milestone in…

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A Call, Aging, Being young, Birthdays, Castledawson, Family, Father Daughter Relationships, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Rites of passage, Seamus Heaney, The Harvest Bow, Themes of childhood

happy birthday da

October 13, 2014 / 12 Comments

It is my father’s birthday today. Unimaginably, he is 76 years old, but like the rest of us, I’m sure there are times when he feels not one iota different from the handsome young man with a shock of black hair, smiling that smile at his beautiful girlfriend ~ I will send his birthday greetings via my mother’s Facebook page. He…

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