Yvonne Watterson
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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.

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. In 2025, 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.

  • American Dream,  Bruce Springsteen,  Themes of Childhood

    The Boss & Me – Still Looking for America

    March 9, 2016 / No Comments

    When he announced he was going to tour again and that he would perform The River – all of it – I knew I’d be there, somewhere in the nosebleed section.  Since 1984, I have seen Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band ten times, and there isn’t a 4th of July – or a Presidential race – when I don’t…

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

    thank goodness, thanksgiving & astral weeks

    November 26, 2015 / 5 Comments

    In the Fall of 2012,  my friend and 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 thirty years. I had just never been able to find the time for it. I had been so busy being busy and bemoaning the pace of…

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  • Arizona Humane Society,  Chihuahuas,  Dog Rescue,  Dogs,  Door into the Dark,  Greyhound,  Loss,  Love,  Mary Oliver,  Memoir,  Rites of passage,  Seamus Heaney,  Starting over,  The Midnight Anvil

    for national dog day – an emotional rescue

    August 27, 2015 / 4 Comments

    A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.” ― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs First there was Molly, a retired racer who loved me. We had rescued her in the Christmas of 2008, on the heels of a spectacular crisis in my professional life,…

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  • Artisans,  Awesome Women,  Craftsmen,  Derry,  Memoir,  Mothering,  Seamus Heaney

    “let your soul and spirit fly”

    March 29, 2015 / 8 Comments

    “Each of us, as we pass through life, leaves traces of the passage. Sometimes the signs are as slight as a bent leaf, a twisted twig, or a seed dispersed. Sometimes, we leave behind the husks of former selves or castaway restraints. While following these trails, we grow ever more aware of our lives in connection-to our foremothers, to the elemental…

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