Editor – Page 130 – 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.

Editor

The writer hails from County Antrim and has lived in the desert southwest of the United States for over 20 years. Her blog is her virtual home away from home.

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lucky 21: saying no to chemo

February 17, 2012 / 23 Comments

Decision made. At 9:45PM I took my first 20mg of Tamoxifen, having spent the better part of the weekend prowling every corner of the Internet in hopes of finding someone to validate my decision, to tell me unequivocally that having weighed the relative merits of treatment with or without adjuvant chemotherapy, Tamoxifen would be enough. Enough for me not to…

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World Cancer Day

the real warrior in our house

February 4, 2012 / 34 Comments

I didn’t know about a World Cancer Day. Until today, I’d known only about Breast Cancer Awareness October when the world seems to turn pink for an entire month. Since October 30th, when I found the lump on my breast – and, believe me, I am thankful to have made it until the end of the pinkest month, blithely unaware of…

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Dispatch from the Diaspora

happy to be home

January 23, 2012 / No Comments

At 4 o’clock this morning, I called out, “Honey!” Almost instantaneously, “Coming Momma!” from a 14 year old who has been elevated to heroine status for reasons that will become clear as I try to make a point about what coming home means. At the same time, from the den, another “Coming honey!” – my wise and worn-out husband who…

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Memoir

cancer on our calendar

December 26, 2011 / 11 Comments

This relatively normal Christmas could have used the enviable scheduling skills of the Breast Patient Navigator. The hustle and bustle of my favorite season has been overshadowed by interminable waiting for results of tests on tumors and saliva. By some miracle, the Christmas tree is up and twinkling in our front window. I even resurrected my camera and, on a…

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