Amazing Grace – 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.

Art, Belfast, Christmas, Memoir, Photography, Saying Thank You, Thanksgiving, Van Morrison, Writers

a time to give thanks …

November 23, 2023 / 1 Comment

The pandemic forced us to reconsider and replace known ways with new routines and rituals; it inspired new reasons - reminders - to be thankful - for all we had previously taken for granted - hugs and handshakes, hanging out and happy hour, multiple trips to the grocery store on the same day and meetings without masks; hair appointments and…

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Art, Belfast, Christmas, Memoir, Photography, Saying Thank You, Thanksgiving, Van Morrison, Writers

Thanks Given

November 23, 2022 / 2 Comments

For the day that's in it, Thanksgiving has something to do with wherever you find that moment of transcendence - among trees in a desert city or at the break of day on the edge of Mexico's largest lake. It's about finding the light. Seeing the light. It's about Annie Lamott's Three Essential Prayers - Help, Thanks, Wow:

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Art, Belfast, Christmas, Memoir, Photography, Saying Thank You, Thanksgiving, Van Morrison, Writers

at the still point – happy thanksgiving

November 25, 2021 / No Comments

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is… T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” Almost a decade ago, I enrolled in a college photography class. Not a bucket list kind of thing by most standards, but it was something I had been meaning to do for…

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9/11, Anything can Happen, Billy Collins, Healing Field Tempe, Memoir, Remembering September 11th, Seamus Heaney, Terrorism, Themes of childhood

sharing the sky on september 11

September 8, 2021 / No Comments

What I remember about the morning of September 11 is how blue the sky was above the Twin Towers on my TV screen. And, I remember the feeling of revulsion so familiar to me from growing up in a tiny country where every day is an anniversary of some atrocity. Until that morning, I had taken for granted the sense…

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