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.

Being a Widow, Facebook, Friendship, Loss, Love, Memoir, Milestones, Rites of passage, Rituals, Social Media, Themes of childhood, Valentines Day, widowed

love love letters ~ happy valentine’s day.

February 14, 2022 / No Comments

Many relationships in my life, I conduct almost entirely by telephone, including those with the people dearest to me. With so many miles of ocean or freeway stretching between our houses, it has been easier to carry on conversations from the comfort of our own homes. I suppose in that regard, it has been business as usual during the pandemic.…

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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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Aging, An Ulster Twilight, Castledawson, Christmas, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Father Daughter Relationships, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood

My Father’s Ulster Twilight

December 9, 2021 / 1 Comment

The bare bulb, a scatter of nails, Shelved timber, glinting chisels: In a shed of corrugated iron Eric Dawson stoops to his plane At five o’clock on a Christmas Eve. Carpenter’s pencil next, the spoke-shave, Fretsaw, auger, rasp and awl, A rub with a rag of linseed oil … It is Christmas morning, 1967, in a modest house on Antrim’s…

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Memoir, Northern Ireland, Themes of childhood

The public library: a first responder for all time.

September 30, 2021 / No Comments

September is National Literacy Month, an annual opportunity to draw attention to the state of literacy in the United States. In Maricopa County, Arizona, where I used to live, one in four adults cannot read these words. One in four adults cannot, therefore, cannot search the internet for news or bargains or jobs. One in four adults cannot fill out…

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