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.

Blogging, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Culture of breast cancer, Diagnosis, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Facebook, Family, Hair, Jackson Browne, Language of Cancer, Little Feat, Lowell George, Memoir, Memoir, Memory, Mother Daughter Relationship, Music, Pink Ribbons, Sherman Alexie, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, Van Morrison, Writers, Writing

breaking bad news & long distance love

May 3, 2013 / 23 Comments

Yesterday, I discovered Rendezvous, “a digital meeting place for the globally engaged, hosted by the International Herald Tribune.” As such, Rendezvous is a global tribe seeking “to inspire international discussion and intelligent debate that enlivens the global conversation.” Sounds like the perfect place for members of the Irish diaspora, scattered far and wide across the globe. People like me. While my circumstances…

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Awesome Women, Blogging, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Health Statistics, Language matters, Lying, Memoir, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Toxic Workplaces, Writing

would I lie to you . . . on National Honesty Day?

April 30, 2013 / 16 Comments

Over for another year, this month long Writing Challenge’s final assignment prompts word-weary pseudo-writers like me to glance back at the trail of breadcrumbs I’ve scattered behind me over the past thirty days. Fitting, since April 30th coincides with National Honesty Day, which, in all honesty, I never knew existed. A Mr. M. Hirsh Goldberg, Press Secretary to a former governor of Maryland and…

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Blogging, Educating Rita, Field of Dreams, Goodfellas, grandmother, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Soundtracks of our Lives, The Deer Hunter, The Natural, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Versatile Blogger Awards, Writing

Congratulations. A reprise.

April 29, 2013 / 4 Comments

On this, the penultimate day of a month long writing challenge, I am resorting to cheating, and I am going to plagiarize a post I wrote not too long ago. The nice folks over at WEGO are asking for some self-congratulatory smugness, having completed (almost) thirty posts in thirty days, giving us free reign to wax lyrical about our own awesomeness.…

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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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