Northern Ireland – 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.

Birthdays, bombing, IRA, John Hewitt, Loughinisland, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Peace, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Peace Process, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, UVF, W.B. Yeats

Omagh. On a Saturday afternoon.

August 14, 2025 / 1 Comment

It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people. – Martin Luther King Jr. Last year, after almost 26 years, the British government opened the first hearing of an independent statutory inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing that claimed 29 lives and injured hundreds in the…

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Dispatch from the Diaspora

where the kettle’s always on

March 30, 2025 / No Comments

It is Mother's Day in Northern Ireland. With all good intention, I had marked the day on my calendar but still forgot to send a card, time running away from me like Bukowski’s wild horses. The water is wide, but it will take only a second to transport me back to my mother's kitchen. I'll pick up the phone to tell…

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Memoir, Northern Ireland, Themes of childhood

How to Open a Book

March 6, 2025 / No Comments

Some years ago, science fiction writer, John Scalzi, penned a homage to the libraries of his life prompting me to do the same today, World Books Day. Not a bricks and mortar library, my childhood library was a bus full of magic that visited a housing estate on Antrim’s Dublin Road every week. Although a world away from the United States,…

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Memoir, Northern Ireland, Themes of childhood

Making something of ourselves …

October 28, 2024 / No Comments

Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, they have a life to live and they’re not really concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anybody’s poems. Until … their father dies, you go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart, they don’t love you any more and all of a sudden you’re desperate…

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