Yvonne Watterson
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Yvonne Watterson

considering the lilies ©

More About Yvonne

More About Yvonne

More about Yvonne

Yvonne Watterson is a Northern Irish-born writer now living in Mexico. Her work has appeared in The Irish Times, Irish Central, Reading Ireland, and elsewhere. Yvonne's essays begin in all sorts of places - a song, a story, a ballpark, a polling place, a graveyard - but they return to the same complicated business of belonging to more than one place - what makes a place, a person, or a moment feel like home.

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. In 2025, 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.

  • Dispatch from the Diaspora

    Belfast Remembered – Author Unknown.

    October 16, 2018 / No Comments

    Because I know it will get lost in a flurry of Tweets and status updates on Facebook, I’m going to put this tribute to Belfast right here for safe-keeping. I don’t know who wrote it and wish that I did so I could say thank you, and with a nod to Van Morrison’s Coney Island, “Wouldn’t it be great if…

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    Editor
  • Arizona,  Blog Awards Ireland 2018,  Dispatch from the Diaspora,  Ireland,  Irish American Connection,  Irish American relations,  Irish Cultural Center,  Irish culture,  Irish Diaspora,  Libraries,  Mary McAleese,  McClelland Library,  Memoir,  Phoenix Landmarks,  Phoenix Sister Cities,  Seamus Heaney

    Etched in Stone: An Irish Oasis in the Desert

    October 6, 2018 / No Comments

    *A version of this blog post originally appeared in The Irish Times on October 1, 2018 With family and friends just a mouse-click away, we might be forgiven for believing we can feel at home wherever we are in the world. Migration seems less complex and consequential given the abundance of opportunities for virtual connections to home, but “the ache…

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    Editor
  • #MeToo,  Dispatch from the Diaspora,  Supreme Court of the United States

    Over to you, boys. Do the right thing.

    September 28, 2018 / No Comments

    It’s four o’clock in the morning. Sleep eludes me. I can’t stop thinking about her, the intelligent middle-aged woman who sat where 27 years ago Dr. Anita Hill sat facing some of the same men – white, powerful, aging men. One of them, Orrin Hatch, stands out in my memory, in the ways he belittled Dr. Hill’s story of sexual assault…

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    Editor
  • Dispatch from the Diaspora,  Feminism,  Mother Daughter Relationship,  Mothering,  Sexual Harassment

    Kavanaugh, Cosby, Weinstein – Counting on us to be Quiet

    September 24, 2018 / No Comments

    Today 81 year old Bill Cosby is waiting to learn his fate, facing up to 30 years behind bars for three counts of aggravated indecent assault against the woman whose allegations led to the criminal case against him.  He continues to deny her allegations and those of the scores of women who came forward against him. Remorseless, he maintains to…

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