Yvonne Watterson
  • About
  • A Homing Bird
  • Subscribe Now
  • About
  • A Homing Bird
  • Subscribe Now

Yvonne Watterson

considering the lilies ©

More About Yvonne

More About Yvonne

More about Yvonne

Yvonne Watterson is a Northern Irish-born writer now living in Mexico. Her work has appeared in The Irish Times, Irish Central, Reading Ireland, and elsewhere. Yvonne's essays begin in all sorts of places - a song, a story, a ballpark, a polling place, a graveyard - but they return to the same complicated business of belonging to more than one place - what makes a place, a person, or a moment feel like home.

  • 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 author of the aptly titled “The Book of Lies: Schemes, Scams, Fakes, and Frauds That Have Changed the Course of History and Affect Our Daily Lives thought such a day would provide much-needed balance for a month that begins with a day for lying, April Fool’s Day. It never occurred to…

    Read More
    Editor

    You May Also Like

    looking after Ireland . . . madeleine albright & me

    January 28, 2014

    How to Open a Book

    March 6, 2025

    Walking on air . . . for your birthday

    September 21, 2021
  • 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. Well. Having had the misfortune to once work with a self-proclaimed guru whose oft-repeated pitch, seriously, was about an ability to channel dreams into reality, I don’t care much for braggadocio.  Still, I think my versatile blogger award story is worth telling again.  Challenge accepted. For the 29th time. Last…

    Read More
    Editor

    You May Also Like

    Poetry: Works like a Charm

    March 22, 2026

    How Close to the Edge We Are

    January 13, 2025

    talking to strangers

    April 28, 2023
  • 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 to be everybody’s friend, and to do anything for anybody. It’s heavy. Richie Havens wasn’t supposed to be the first act at Woodstock. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, having arrived by helicopter. Who could have predicted that half a million people would…

    Read More
    Editor

    You May Also Like

    May you live in interesting times …

    April 15, 2012

    separation anxiety

    March 15, 2022

    by the river on independence day

    July 4, 2023
  • 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 the quotidian moments that make up a life which brings me to the 27th day of the 2013 WEGO Health Writing Challenge prompting us to create five working titles for the book of our lives. If I were to write my life, I would first have to devise a way to cull…

    Read More
    Editor

    You May Also Like

    last birthday: june 12, 2018

    June 12, 2023

    Good Trouble – in the Back Seat with Stuart Bailie.

    June 21, 2019

    Pink Ribbons & Forever Chemicals.

    September 28, 2021
Load More

A Homing Bird on Substack

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

Email me: ycwatterson@gmail.com

Field Notes

  • As Rich as She Could Be
  • The World Cup. According to America.
  • The Long Way Home.
  • I Don’t Actually Like Sports. I Like People.
  • dog in the headlights

Shortlisted for 2025 Irish Book Awards

Stephen Travers with Yvonne Watterson, Foreword by Alexandra Orton

Longlisted. 2015 Blog Awards Ireland

Finalist: 2014 Blog Awards Ireland – Best Blog of Irish Diaspora

SHORTLISTED: 2013 BEST BLOG OF THE IRISH DIASPORA

The Lilies at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Canada ~ photograph by Ken Kaminesky .

take time to consider the lilies every day . . .
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments
  • August 2026
  • July 2026
  • May 2026
  • March 2026
  • January 2026
  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • September 2025
  • August 2025
  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • March 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
Copyright © & Usage 2026 Yvonne Watterson Writing - All rights reserved. All content published on this blog—including articles, images, and media—is the property of Yvonne Watterson , unless otherwise noted. Unauthorized use or duplication of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited. You may share brief excerpts and links to blog posts for non-commercial purposes, provided that full and clear credit is given to Yvonne Watterson with a direct link to the original content. This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License . Disclaimer The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of any organizations or affiliates. Some posts may include affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission—at no additional cost to you—if you choose to make a purchase through those links. These help support the blog and its content.
Loading Comments...