Yvonne Watterson Writing
Yvonne Watterson Writing

considering the lilies & lessons from the field ©

More About Yvonne

More About Yvonne

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 young,  Coming of age,  Death and dying,  John Lennon,  learning to drive,  Memoir,  Mother Daughter Relationship,  riding a bicycle,  saying goodbye,  Starting over,  Time,  widowed

    wheels keep turning

    January 13, 2014 / 27 Comments

    He has been dead for 59 days, and we both miss him. He missed her 16th birthday and the first time she got behind the wheel of a car, his car. And she missed him. It was this past Christmas Day – her first without him – that my daughter took me for a drive. My father, a world away…

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    Editor
  • Dunblane,  Guns,  Memoir,  Newtown,  School shootings,  Themes of childhood

    silent night again . . . from newtown to dunblane

    December 14, 2013 / 12 Comments

    December 14, 2012 Cold and lifeless, the bodies of twenty little children lie where they were gunned down that morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It is a crime scene that the day before was a school. The medical examiner’s team has begun its work through the night to make sure there are no mistakes, no shadow of doubt about the names of those children…

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    Editor
  • Art,  Awesome Women,  Breast Cancer Treatment,  Breast Reconstruction,  Culture of breast cancer,  Feminism,  Kellys Cellars,  Mammograms,  Mother Daughter Relationship,  Nipple Tattoo,  P.INK DAY 2013,  Pink Ribbon Culture,  Pink Ribbons,  Pinkwashing,  Sexism,  Shopping,  Themes of childhood,  Tina Fey,  Writers

    Tattoo. Taboo. Oh how we judge you . . .

    October 18, 2013 / 35 Comments

    NOTE: On October 20, 2013, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month winds down, the pictures on this post offended someone so much that she or he reported them to Facebook and asked to have them removed. And I thought the cancer was the offensive thing. The story that follows is mine. I chose to share it. I make no apology. I did…

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    Editor
  • Anahorish,  California,  Castledawson,  grandmother,  Memoir,  Memoir,  Mother Daughter Relationship,  Ordinary Things,  Poetry,  Seamus Heaney,  Seamus Heaney,  Themes of Childhood

    doing a dance for seamus heaney

    October 3, 2013 / 8 Comments

    Ironing shirts, folding sheets, the mundane tasks that Seamus Heaney transformed into magical spots of time that make me think of my mother back in Castledawson, County Derry a great armful of sheets rescued from the clothes-line before the rain begins to fall. Then, the folding, a precise ritual, my father her partner in a dance handed down from one generation…

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