Yvonne Watterson Writing

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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.

Awesome Women, Blogging, Bullying, Coming Home, Culture of breast cancer, Facebook, Feminism, Health, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Movies, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Teaching, Toxic Workplaces, Twitter, Women in Politics, Workplace Bullying, Workplace Mobbing, Writing

Follow you. Follow me. Richie Havens R.I.P.

April 28, 2013 / 12 Comments

In the summer of 1968, a young Richie Havens told Rolling Stone magazine that the direction for his music was heaven. Until his death at 72 last week, Richie Havens embodied the notion of music as a transcendent medium for connection: Music is the major form of communication. It’s the commonest vibration, the people’s news broadcast … I think I’m ready…

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Family, grandmother, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Memoir, Memory, Mother Daughter Relationship, Northern Ireland, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, Writing

this is your life in a big red book

April 27, 2013 / 19 Comments

Can biography evolve to meet our current demands? Has the internet killed off the demand for the authoritative? In an age of best-selling celebrity memoir, does anyone still care what Shakespeare had for breakfast? asks Guardian columnist Kathryn Holeywell as she ponders the state of the art of biography. For the record, I care what Shakespeare had for breakfast and many of…

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Bullying, Cancer Language, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language matters, Mastectomy, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Shirley Jackson, Short Stories, Tamoxifen, Writing

breast cancer: she brought it upon herself

April 25, 2013 / 20 Comments

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that…

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Arizona, Awesome Women, Family, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Memory, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Soundtracks of our Lives, Van Morrison, Wendy Cope, Writing

behind the rituals

April 23, 2013 / 17 Comments

This is an updated version of a piece of writing I started over a year ago. Today seemed as good a day as any to be thankful for all the routines and rituals that keep the little trio that is my family on solid ground. Day 22 of this month-long writing challenge asks that we write about something ordinary that inspires or…

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