Words of Wisdom – Page 4 – 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

In Every Thing Give Thanks . . .

November 30, 2016 / No Comments

Several years ago, my friend and I enrolled in a college photography class. This was not something to check off a bucket list, just a little thing I had been meaning to do for about thirty years. I had never made the time for it until a cancer diagnosis shifted my priorities. Until then, I had been oh so busy being busy, bemoaning…

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Actors, Art, Children's Books, Gary Shteyngart, HBO, James Gandolfini, Maurice Sendak, Memoir, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, The Sopranos, Themes of Childhood, Where The Wild Things Are

james gandolfini ~ forever with the wild things

July 23, 2016 / No Comments

The only non-book on my bookshelves is the Sopranos DVD collection. Apropos that it sits among some of the most compelling stories ever told because, as Gary Shteyngart says, The Sopranos is “storytelling for the new century.” And, a good story lasts forever. Every night at 8PM my husband used to ask me, “So are you ready for Tony and the boys?”…

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Language of Cancer, Leontia Flynn, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Rituals, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood

poetry – the charm of it

March 21, 2016 / No Comments

For World Poetry Day 2016. The freedom and the lovely uselessness of poetry is its whole point. ~ Leontia Flynn My parents were raised in rural County Derry, in Heaney country, where they learned to be thrifty and resourceful, and also – when all else failed – to believe in the mystical powers of “folk healers,” those individuals uniquely gifted…

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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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Editor