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.

Amy Winehouse, Antrim, Awesome Women, Back to School, Coming of age, Education, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Sephora, Shopping, Valley of the Sun, Whoopi Goldberg

breaking bad & back to school . . .

August 21, 2013 / 15 Comments

It is 7:30pm, it is dark, and, unbelievably, it is 108 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 42.2 degrees Centigrade for my friends back home – and no, dad, I didn’t do the mental arithmetic the way you taught me. I used bloody Google). I am hot. I am bothered, and I just don’t understand why we can’t wait for September to send our hot…

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Arizona, Artisans, Crafts, Fosterling, Lewis Hyde, Memoir, Memoir, Mother's Day, Ordinary Things, Phoenix, Seamus Heaney, Writing

little marvels on mother’s day in america . . .

May 5, 2013 / 18 Comments

In a special for CNBC, Anna Andrianova shares the National Retail Federation’s estimate that $20.7 billion will be spent next Sunday, Mother’s Day in America. How easily that number rolls off the tongue – twenty-point-seven-billion-dollars – but what does it mean? A lot, of course. Years ago, I told my students to avoid using “a lot” in their compositions, because it was too…

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Belfast, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Phoenix, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood, Van Morrison

words & music for st. patrick’s day every day

March 17, 2013 / 17 Comments

I’m a bit ambivalent about St. Patrick’s Day. What is it about March 17th that renders so many people Irish or some version of it that I don’t recall from living the first twenty-seven years of my life in Ireland. Everywhere I turn, there are people bragging about their Irishness, with plastic green bowler hats and/or T-shirts emblazoned with a…

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9/11, Anything can Happen, bombing, Healing Field Tempe, Language matters, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Peace, Phoenix, Pre-school, Rolling Stones, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, Valley of the Sun, Writers

moving memories from New York to Phoenix

September 10, 2012 / 24 Comments

The Rolling Stones “Shattered” was stuck in my head all weekend long, not all of it, just a few bars, just enough to be maddening. Not the first time, nor will it be the last, for me to fall prey to an “earworm.” I’m not alone. It turns out, according to psychologist Dr. Victoria Williams that 90% of people experience this “involuntary…

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