Editor – Page 60 – 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.

Arizona, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Immigration, Immigration, Racial Profiing

A Spectacular Risk ~ for Guadalupe García de Rayos

February 9, 2017 / No Comments

Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair; it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the world, and to our own past, with clean hands and a clear conscience. ~ President John F. Kennedy My circumstances are different from those of my grandparents and so many Irish before me, immigrants who were obliged to leave home…

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Dispatch from the Diaspora

For my BFF on her Birthday

February 5, 2017 / 1 Comment

My best friend and I don’t exchange birthday gifts or cards. This reality confounds me because in the areas of gift-giving and card-selection, we are masters. In large part, the traffic on Interstate 10 has caused us to conduct our relationship almost entirely by phone. This a satisfactory strategy just in case either of us decides to move to Europe, and it has…

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Dispatch from the Diaspora, Feminism, Love, Meg Ryan, Milestones, Nora Ephron, Online dating, Relationships, Rob Reiner, Social Media, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail

match point ~ seeking romance & mr. right

February 3, 2017 / No Comments

“If it isn’t too forward, would you like to meet?” Why not? Why not meet the tall stranger who says he’s slender and likes Bob Dylan and will open doors for me? Why not? Between the time I met my husband and the time he died twenty four years later, the search for romance and Mr. Right had moved online, a perfect…

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Governor Jan Brewer, Immigration, Memoir, Politics, Racial Profiing, SB1070, Seamus Heaney, Sectarianism

America – a no-go area.

January 30, 2017 / No Comments

In his first ten days in office, the President of the United States has shown us that the lessons of history do not apply to him. Swiftly and proudly, he has signed a string of Executive Orders, the most recent barring citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering America for at least 90 days. He’s not done…

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