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.

Arizona, Awesome Women, Immigration, Linda Ronstadt, Memoir, Parkinson's Disease, Politics, SB1070, Soundtracks of our Lives, Themes of childhood

What would Dr. King do?

January 16, 2022 / 2 Comments

‘Only when it’s dark enough can you see the stars’ On the Martin Luther King holiday weekend in 2010, more than twenty thousand of us gathered in Phoenix, Arizona to march from Falcon Park to Sheriff Joe Arpaio‘s ‘Tent City,’ the 7-acre outdoor jail he once described as a “concentration camp” to supporters at his local Italian-American club. A place…

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9/11, Awesome Women, cancer, Children's Books, Education, Emmylou Harris, Family, favorite teacher, Love Actually, Memoir, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Ordinary Things, Pre-school, Soundtracks of our Lives, summer camp, Teaching, Themes of Childhood, Van Morrison, Van Morrison, Women and careers

For my daughter on her birthday . . . the love, actually, is all around.

December 19, 2021 / No Comments

It’s one of my favorite pictures – her T-shirt reminding me the way she always does, “good things will come.” It is my darling girl’s birthday, and with COVID keeping us in our respective places once again this year, we’ll have to make do with text messages and embarrassing photos on Facebook instead of a celebration here in Mexico. I’m…

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Art, Belfast, Christmas, Memoir, Photography, Saying Thank You, Thanksgiving, Van Morrison, Writers

at the still point – happy thanksgiving

November 25, 2021 / No Comments

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is… T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” Almost a decade ago, I enrolled in a college photography class. Not a bucket list kind of thing by most standards, but it was something I had been meaning to do for…

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Breast Cancer Treatment, Cancer Language, Depression, Language matters, Memoir, Mental Health, Northern Ireland, Ordinary Things, World Mental Health Day 2013

after

November 11, 2021 / 2 Comments

You. Have. Cancer. Like an unexpected snow, the pronouncement fell from her lips. I cried as though I had just found out that someone dear to me had died. Inconsolable at first, I assumed those great fat tears flowed from the sheer fright of a disease that has no cure. A decade later, I know my sorrow was more about…

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